Morphometrics in development and evolution

SYNOPSIS. Morphometric approaches facilitate the analysis of quantitative v ariation in form, typically becoming most useful for the study of organisms that have completed morphogenesis and are at differing stages of growth. R ecent conceptual and technical refinements in the characterization and comp arison of forms have joined methodological innovations in molecular biology , embryology, and phylogeny reconstruction to advance the study of the evol ution of development. Among the phenomena that have recently been examined morphometrically are developmental integration and heterochrony, discoverie s that in turn raise deeper questions about the connections among disciplin es and among levels of description: the relationship between morphometric v ariables and characters, between phenomenology and process, and the interpl ay (and evolutionary relevance) of genes and phenotypes. Morphometrics can continue to play a vital role in evolutionary studies of development as its results generate questions both for its practitioners and for other sorts of biologists to explore.