Concepts of phenotypic variation are central to many biological and biomedical disciplines, including evolutionary biology and ecology. A biologically meaningful measurement of phenotypic variation, however, is surprisingly challenging, especially for high-dimensional data. I demonstrate problems in the interpretation of such statistics and present criteria to evaluate biological meaningfulness. I use this framework to analyze classic concepts in evolutionary biology. I further present a multivariate strategy to assess phenotypic variation from morphometric data, which I apply to study developmental canalization and selection in the human cranium.
Philipp Mitteröcker
Assistant Professor
Department of Theoretical Biology
Universität Wien