Characterizing Floral Symmetry in the Core Goodeniaceae with Geometric Morphometrics

Characterizing Floral Symmetry in the Core Goodeniaceae with Geometric Morphometrics

Core Goodeniaceae is a clade of ~330 species primarily distributed in Australia. Considerable variation in flower morphology exists within this group and we aim to use geometric morphometrics to characterize this variation across the two major subclades: Scaevola sensu lato (s.l.) and Goodenia s.l., the latter of which was hypothesized to exhibit greater variability in floral symmetry form. We ...

Three-dimensional geometric morphometrics for studying floral shape variation.

Variation in floral shape is of major interest to evolutionary and pollination biologists, plant systematists and developmental geneticists. Quantifying this variation has been difficult due to the three-dimensional (3D) complexity of angiosperm flowers. By combining 3D geometric representations of flowers obtained by micro-computed tomography scanning with geometric morphometric methods, well ...

The unexpected depths of genome-skimming data: A case study examining Goodeniaceae floral symmetry genes.

Premise of the study The use of genome skimming allows systematists to quickly generate large data sets, particularly of sequences in high abundance (e.g., plastomes); however, researchers may be overlooking data in low abundance that could be used for phylogenetic or evo-devo studies. Here, we present a bioinformatics approach that explores the low-abundance portion of genome-skimming next-gen...

The unexpected depths of genome-skimming data: A case study examining Goodeniaceae floral symmetry genes1

Geometric Morphometrics

The field of morphometrics is developing quickly and recent advances allow for geometric techniques to be applied easily to many zoological problems. This article briefly introduces geometric morphometric techniques and then reviews selected areas where those techniques have been applied to questions of general interest. This article is relevant to non-specialists looking for an entry into geom...