Scaling and shear transformations capture beak shape variation in Darwin's finches.

ABSTRACT: Evolution by natural selection has resulted in a remarkable diversity of organism morphologies that has long fascinated scientists and served to establish the first relations among species. Despite the essential role of morphology as a phenotype of species, there is not yet a formal, mathematical scheme to quantify morphological phenotype and relate it to both the genotype and the underlying developmental genetics. Herein we demonstrate that the morphological diversity in the beaks of Darwin's Finches is quantitatively accounted for by the mathematical group of affine transformations. Specifically, we show that all beak shapes of Ground Finches (genus Geospiza) are related by scaling transformations (a subgroup of the affine group), and the same relationship holds true for all the beak sha

SUBMITTER: Campas O 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2840476 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature