Morphometric

"Traditional" morphometrics

Traditional morphometrics analyzes lengths, widths, masses, angles, ratios and areas. In general, traditional morphometric data are measurements of size. A drawback of using many measurements of size is that most will be highly correlated; as a result, there are few independent variables despite the many measurements. For instance, tibia length will vary with femur length and also with humerus and ulna length and even with measurements of the head. Traditional morphometric data are nonetheless useful when either absolute or relative sizes are of particular interest, such as in studies of growth. These data are also useful when size measurements are of theoretical importance such as body mass and limb cross-sectional area and length in studies of functional morphology. However, these measurements have one important limitation: they contain little information about the spatial distribution of shape changes across the organism. They are also useful when determining the extent to which certain pollutants have affected an individual. These indices include the hepatosomatic index, gonadosomatic index and also the condition factors (shakumbila, 2014).