Abstract
The challenging complexity of biological structures has led to the development of several methods for quantitative analyses of form. Bones are shaped by the interaction of historical (phylogenetic), structural, and functional constrains. Consequently, bone shape has been investigated intensively in an evolutionary context. Geometric morphometric approaches allow the description of the shape of an object in all of its biological complexity. However, when biological objects present only few anatomical landmarks, sliding semi-landmarks may provide good descriptors of shape. The sliding procedure, mandatory for sliding semi-landmarks, requires several steps that may be time-consuming. We here compare the time required by two different software packages (‘Edgewarp’ and ‘Morpho’) for the same sliding task, and investigate potential differences in the results and biological interpretation. ‘Morpho’ is much faster than ‘Edgewarp,’ notably as a result of the greater computational power of the ‘Morpho’ software routines and the complexity of the ‘Edgewarp’ workflow. Morphospaces obtained using both software packages are similar and provide a consistent description of the biological variability. The principal differences between the two software packages are observed in areas characterized by abrupt changes in the bone topography. In summary, both software packages perform equally well in terms of the description of biological structures, yet differ in the simplicity of the workflow and time needed to perform the analyses.
Highlights
Because the interaction of form and function impacts performance, biological shape is under direct selection
The evolutionary history of an organism plays an important role and often a strong phylogenetic signal is detected in bone shape (Morgan, 2009; Fabre et al, 2013a; How to cite this article Botton-Divet et al (2015), Tools for quantitative form description; an evaluation of different software packages for semi-landmark analysis
The aim of the present study is to compare the workflow and the results obtained with two different software packages for the same three dimensional sliding task
Summary
Because the interaction of form and function impacts performance, biological shape is under direct selection. The evolutionary history of an organism plays an important role and often a strong phylogenetic signal is detected in bone shape (Morgan, 2009; Fabre et al, 2013a; How to cite this article Botton-Divet et al (2015), Tools for quantitative form description; an evaluation of different software packages for semi-landmark analysis. Fabre et al, 2014a; Alvarez, Ercoli & Prevosti, 2013). Functional constraints imposed through differences in locomotor behavior (e.g., Fabre et al, 2013b; Alvarez, Ercoli & Prevosti, 2013) and prey capture strategy or prey size (Andersson, 2004; Meloro et al, 2008; Cornette et al, 2013) can affect bone size and shape. Mechanical loads during development (e.g., Beaupre, Orr & Carter, 1990; Bass et al, 2002) and during the lifetime of an individual (Lanyon et al, 1982; Currey, 2003) can shape bones because of bone remodeling
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