Geometric Morphometrics for Biologists: A Primer

Morphometrics is a seductive mistress. Despite its current popularity, and despite concerted attempts to explain the revolution that occurred in its practice during the 1980s and 90s, it still lulls nascent practitioners down the garden path of apparent mathematical sophistication. In return they are often left bereft and bewildered, having squandered their time carrying out simplistic analysis without engaging with the mathematics on which the discipline is grounded (limiting their ability to address novel future dataanalysis challenges) and without gaining much insight into the biological processes that are supposed to be the focus of morphometric investigation. This, along with morphometrics’ historical link to phenetics, leaves morphometrics often resembling an academic ghetto that graduate students and advanced undergraduates are sometimes encourage to visit—to pick up some street smarts and a bit of local colour—but cautioned not to linger in; especially after dark.