Three-dimensional geometric morphometric analyses of humerus ecomorphology: New perspectives for paleohabitat reconstruction in carnivorans and ungulates.

ABSTRACT: Long bone ecomorphology has proven effective for paleohabitat reconstructions across a wide range of mammalian clades. Still, there is no comprehensive framework to allow interpretation of long bone morphological variation within and between different monophyletic groups. Here, we investigated the use of humerus morphometry to classify living members of the orders Carnivora and ungulates based on their preferred habitats. Using geometric morphometrics, we extracted three different kinds of humerus shape data describing interspecific variation with and without accounting for evolutionary allometry and phylogenetic signal. The traditional a priori categorization of species in open, mixed, and closed habitats was employed in combination with selected subsets of shape variables to identify the

SUBMITTER: Serio C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11791394 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature