This project will facilitate the completion of a book on geometric morphometrics. While morphometric methods (statistical methods used to study biological variation in shapes of organisms or their structures) are well-known, the book will make the newer geometric methods more accessible to biologists. A lab manual is also planned that would serve as a practical workbook for methods and software. It will be used in workshops and courses on morphometrics. The book will synthesize nearly 30 years of work by the PI on the analysis and development of biostatistical methods and software.
This project will have a broad impact because it will help meet the demand by increasing numbers of researchers for training on use of the new geometric morphometric methods. These new methods are finding wide applicability in studies of patterns of evolution, studies of variation in relation to changes in environmental variables, and in medical applications. Because the field is new, it is anticipated that the use of geometric morphometrics will become even more wide-spread once the methods become more accessible to researchers. This is another reason why it is important to complete this text book for this emerging field of study.
