Wake 9700914 Ecomorphology is a sub-discipline that has emerged from interest in the relationship between organismal morphology and natural history. Morphology includes both structure and function. Relating variation at these levels to variation in whole-organism performance can help to reveal causality between morphology and performance. This, combined with demonstration of the importance of performance measures in organismal ecoloey or behavior, makes ecomorphological inference more robust. This is a proposal to study the feeding ecomorphology of the monophyletic lizard family Crotaphytidae. Crotaphytids show trends in feeding apparatus structure, feeding behavior, and dietary ecology. Bite force is an important performance variable influencing feeding behavior and dietary ecology. Structural and functional analyses of the feeding apparatus of three crotaphytid taxa will be used to construct computer models. These models will generate predictions of bite force that will be tested by bite-force measurement. Simulated structural and functional perturbations of the models will help to identify causality between structural and functional variation and biteforce variation. Identification of such causality links studies of morphology to ecology and behavior and, ultimately, facilitates rigorous evaluation of ecomorphological evolution.
