Morphometrics

Generally, morphometrics (from the Greek: "morph," meaning shape or form, and "metron”, meaning measurement) comprises methods of extracting measurements from shapes. In most cases applied to biological topics in the widest sense. Morphometrics studies the "form follows function" aspect of biology, mapping the changes in an organism's shape in regards to its function. Schools of morphometrics are characterized by what aspects of biological "form" they are concerned with, what they choose to measure, and what kinds of questions they ask of the measurements once they are made. In many cases involves calculating angles, areas, volumes and other quantitative data from landmark and segmentation data.

The term is also used in geosciences to describe measurements of terrain. Geomorphometry or more generally topography is the field specializing in this measurement.

Bibliography

• Cadrin, Steven X. (2000). "Advances in morphometric identification of fishery stocks". Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries. 10: 91–112.

• McLellan, Tracy (June 1998). "The Relative Success of Some Methods for Measuring and Describing the Shape of Complex Objects". Systematic Biology. Society of Systematic Biologists. 47 (2): 264–281. Retrieved 2007-03-22.

• Swiderski, Donald L. (July 1998). "Why Morphometrics is not Special: Coding Quantitative Data for Phylogenetic Analysis". Systematic Biology. Society of Systematic Biologists. 47 (3): 508–519.