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Published in:
2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter
2. Morphometrics: A Brief Review
Authors : Paolo Remagnino, Simon Mayo, Paul Wilkin, James Cope, Don Kirkup
Published in: Computational Botany
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg
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Abstract
In the Introduction (Chap. 1) an account was given of the rationale for using the morphology of leaves as the source of raw material for automatic systems for the identification of plant species. In this chapter we focus on how morphological features have been used in statistical analysis to define taxa like species, test pre-existing species classifications and carry out identification. Our aim here is to survey briefly the progress and development of the statistical analysis of morphological variation. This general area of scientific research is called “morphometrics”, a term which is a compound of the classical Greek words morphé: “form”, and metron: “that by which anything is measured” (http://www.lexilogos.com/english/greek_ancient_dictionary.htm). “Morphometrics” can thus be construed as “the measurement of form”. “Form”, in turn, can be understood in a narrow sense as referring only to shape, or more broadly as including shape, structure (which includes size, architecture and internal anatomy) and other aspects of external appearance. It is in the broad sense that we will use it here.