This book frames and demonstrates the best of modern morphometric methods, bridging the gap between biostatistics and organismal biology.

The first edition of Geometric Morphometrics for Biologists has been the primary resource for teaching modern geometric methods of shape analysis to biologists who have a stronger background in biology than in multivariate statistics and matrix algebra. These geometric methods are appealing to biologists who approach the study of shape from a variety of perspectives, from clinical to evolutionary, because they incorporate the geometry of organisms throughout the data analysis. The second edition of this book retains the emphasis on accessible explanations, and the copious illustrations and examples of the first, updating the treatment of both theory and practice. The second edition represents the current state-of-the-art and adds new examples and summarizes recent literature, as well as provides an overview of new software and step-by-step guidance through details of carrying out the analyses. - Contains updated coverage of methods, especially for sampling complex curves and 3D forms and a new chapter on applications of geometric morphometrics to forensics - Offers a reorganization of chapters to streamline learning basic concepts - Presents detailed instructions for conducting analyses with freely available, easy to use software - Provides numerous illustrations, including graphical presentations of important theoretical concepts and demonstrations of alternative approaches to presenting results

Contributors from a range of disciplines consider the disconnect between human evolutionary studies and the rest of evolutionary biology. The study of human evolution often seems to rely on scenarios and received wisdom rather than theory and methodology, with each new fossil or molecular analysis interpreted as supporting evidence for the presumed lineage of human ancestry. We might wonder why we should pursue new inquiries if we already know the story. Is paleoanthropology an evolutionary science? Are analyses of human evolution biological? In this volume, contributors from disciplines that range from paleoanthropology to philosophy of science consider the disconnect between human evolutionary studies and the rest of evolutionary biology. All of the contributors reflect on their own research and its disciplinary context, considering how their fields of inquiry can move forward in new ways. The goal is to encourage a more multifaceted intellectual environment for the understanding of human evolution. Topics discussed include paleoanthropology's history of procedural idiosyncrasies; the role of mind and society in our evolutionary past; humans as large mammals rather than a special case; genomic analyses; computational approaches to phylogenetic reconstruction; descriptive morphology versus morphometrics; and integrating insights from archaeology into the interpretation of human fossils. Contributors Markus Bastir, Fred L. Bookstein, Claudine Cohen, Richard G. Delisle, Robin Dennell, Rob DeSalle, John de Vos, Emma M. Finestone, Huw S. Groucutt, Gabriele A. Macho, Fabrizzio Mc Manus, Apurva Narechania, Michael D. Petraglia, Thomas W. Plummer, J.W. F. Reumer, Jeff Rosenfeld, Jeffrey H. Schwartz, Dietrich Stout, Ian Tattersall, Alan R. Templeton, Michael Tessler, Peter J. Waddell, Martine Zilversmit

Remodeling Forensic Skeletal Age: Modern Applications and New Research Directions presents a comprehensive understanding of the analytical frameworks and conceptual approaches surrounding forensic age estimation and the current state of the field. The book also includes a series of recommendations of best practice through chapter-examples that offer theory and guidance for data acquisition, technique and/or model development, and the assessment of impact of the adopted approaches. Written by leading, international experts, the book's contributors provide an introduction, conceptual understanding and taxonomy of statistical frameworks and computational approaches, including the Bayesian paradigm and machine learning techniques for age estimation. - Discusses core concepts in age estimation, along with key terminologies - Presents tactics on how readers can generate sound models that can be translated into forensic reports and expert testimony - Provides a step-wise approach and best practice recommendations for data acquisition, considerations in sampling, exploratory data analysis, visualization, and sources of error for appropriate and reproducible research design - Includes examples, theory and guidance on how to develop models for age estimation and reviews the impact of population-specific and universal approaches

Multivariate Analysis Comprehensive Reference Work on Multivariate Analysis and its Applications The first edition of this book, by Mardia, Kent and Bibby, has been used globally for over 40 years. This second edition brings many topics up to date, with a special emphasis on recent developments. A wide range of material in multivariate analysis is covered, including the classical themes of multivariate normal theory, multivariate regression, inference, multidimensional scaling, factor analysis, cluster analysis and principal component analysis. The book also now covers modern developments such as graphical models, robust estimation, statistical learning, and high-dimensional methods. The book expertly blends theory and application, providing numerous worked examples and exercises at the end of each chapter. The reader is assumed to have a basic knowledge of mathematical statistics at an undergraduate level together with an elementary understanding of linear algebra. There are appendices which provide a background in matrix algebra, a summary of univariate statistics, a collection of statistical tables and a discussion of computational aspects. The work includes coverage of: Basic properties of random vectors, copulas, normal distribution theory, and estimation Hypothesis testing, multivariate regression, and analysis of variance Principal component analysis, factor analysis, and canonical correlation analysis Discriminant analysis, cluster analysis, and multidimensional scaling New advances and techniques, including supervised and unsupervised statistical learning, graphical models and regularization methods for high-dimensional data Although primarily designed as a textbook for final year undergraduates and postgraduate students in mathematics and statistics, the book will also be of interest to research workers and applied scientists.

National Science Foundation (NSF) is a unique federal agency because it supports scientific research financially, but does not engage in scientific work itself. Its history is known only in part because the NSF is a vibrant, expanding, and living entity that makes the final telling of its story impossible. Much can be learned from its beginning as well as its component parts. If the founding of the NSF in 1950 was couched in an era of physics, especially atomic physics, certainly by the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, biology was, and remains, the queen of sciences for the predictable future. This book highlights the elite status of America’s biological sciences as they were funded, affected, and, to a very real degree, interactively guided by the NSF. It examines important events in the earlier history of the Foundation because they play strongly upon the development of the various biology directorates. Issues such as education, applied research, medical science, the National Institutes of Health, the beginnings of biotechnology, and other matters are also discussed.

Evolutionary Biology, of which this is the twenty-second volume, continues to offer its readers a wide range of original articles, reviews, and commentaries on evolution, in the broadest sense of that term. The topics of the reviews range from anthropology, molecular evolution, and paleobiology to principles of systematics. In recent volumes, a broad spectrum of articles have appeared on such subjects as asymmetric sexual isolation, biochemical systematics in plants, species selection, DNA hybridization and phylogenetics, modes of evolution in Pleistocene rodents, and development and evolution of the vertebrate limb. We have also attempted to provide a forum for conƯ flicting ideas. Articles such as these, often too long for standard journals, are the material for Evolutionary Biology. The editors continue to solicit manuscripts on an international scale in an effort to see that everyone ofthe many facets of biological evolution is covered. Manuscripts should be sent to anyone of the following: Max K. Hecht, Department of Biology, Queens College of the City University of New York, Flushing, New York 11367; Bruce Wallace, Department of Biology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, BlacksƯ burg, Virginia 24061; GhilleanT. Prance, New York Botanical Garden, Bronx, New York 10458. The Editors vii Contents 1. Phylogeny of Early Vertebrate Skeletal Induction and Ossification Patterns ... 1 John G. Maisey Introduction: The Fossil Record.. .. .. ... .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 1.

This book offers a thorough and up-to-date treatment of the use of morphometric procedures in a wide variety of contexts. As one of the most dynamic and popular fields on the contemporary biological scene, morphometrics is gaining notice among researchers and students as a necessary complement to molecular studies in the understanding and maintenance of biodiversity. This is the first reference to meet that growing need.

Though first a doctor who treated patients, the author became a professor, questioning facts (researching), exciting students (teaching), borrowing ideas (from the breadth of science, statistics, technology, engineering and medicine), and challenging 'how it all works'. Though beginning gently, the question in the book eventually leads fiercely into how research, teaching, practice and service really occur, and to ferocious challenges both inside academia and out in society.It is hoped that this double-ferocity will be useful: to students wondering about their futures; to physician and scientist parents looking at the possibility of their children following them; to all parents and grandparents worrying about the careers of all offspring; to anyone interested in the processes of discovery, teaching, and service; and for everyone, concerned about the wider implications for education and for society.