How many more? Sample size determination in studies of morphological integration and evolvability.

ABSTRACT: 1. The variational properties of living organisms are an important component of current evolutionary theory. As a consequence, researchers working on the field of multivariate evolution have increasingly used integration and evolvability statistics as a way of capturing the potentially complex patterns of trait association and their effects over evolutionary trajectories. Little attention has been paid, however, to the cascading effects that inaccurate estimates of trait covariance have on these widely used evolutionary statistics. 2. Here, we analyze the relationship between sampling effort and inaccuracy in evolvability and integration statistics calculated from 10-trait matrices with varying patterns of covariation and magnitudes of integration. We then extrapolate our initial approach

SUBMITTER: Grabowski M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5423670 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature