3-5 February 2025

To foster international participation, this course will be held online

Introductory geometric morphometrics

Geometric morphometrics has become a standard in research fields as diverse as evolutionary biology, anthropology and archaeology because it combines statistical rigour and ease of interpretation. Through geometric morphometrics, biological form is quantified, analysed and the results are expressed as easily interpretable and visually impactful shape changes. This course focuses on the initial steps of geometric morphometrics such as: acquiring data (in 2D and 3D), ensuring data quality, and performing basic analyses and visualizations.
More advanced techniques in data analysis of geometric morphometric and other multidimensional data, as well as more in-depth explanation of the analyses, are presented in the course Multidimensional Phenotypic Evolution , given by the same instructor.

The course will be delivered over three days and will comprise both lectures and hands-on sessions. The lectures will cover both basic theoretical aspects and their practical implementation in research practice and software. During the hands-on sessions, the attendees will have the chance of both using example datasets and applying the knowledge acquired to their own data. The course will be focused, as much as possible, on easy-to-use software with graphical user interface to maximize the ability to understand concepts and apply them. However, substantial information on R implementations will be provided, as appropriate and depending on participants’ interests.

This course is aimed at beginners in the area of geometric morphometrics, who are interested in learning or improving knowledge on how to acquire 2D and/or 3D geometric morphometric data, as well as developing an intuitive understanding of what common geometric morphometric analyses mean. In other words, it is aimed at researchers who intend to use geometric morphometrics or who have started performing geometric morphometric analyses but feel they need a more structured background.

From 2018 to 2024 Physalia Courses has offered a single course in Geometric Morphometrics aimed at beginner and intermediate users.
The first two editions of the course have taken place in Berlin, Germany. The participants to the first edition have been involved in a study led by the instructor, which has been published in 2020 (Fruciano et al 2020 - Zoological Joural of the Linnean Society). The subsequent editions of the course, as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, have been successfully held online.

From 2025, Physalia is offering this short course mainly focused on data acquisition and experimental design and a companion course on Multidimensional Phenotypic Evolution  which focuses more on data analysis (including on other types of multidimensional data) 
 

Monday– Classes 1-7 pm Berlin time

 Geometric morphometrics: overview and potential applications:

•    Traditional and geometric morphometrics
•    An overview of common analyses
 
From biological objects to numerical representation – Data acquisition:

•    Overview of typical devices used to digitalise biological objects
•    Landmarks, semilandmarks, outlines and surfaces - different types of geometric morphometric data
•    Most commonly used geometric morphometric software
•    Data quality, most common pitfalls in study design and data acquisition
 
 
Tuesday– Classes 1-7 pm Berlin time

Generalized Procrustes analysis (GPA) – the core of most geometric morphometrics

Further topics in data acquisition:

•    More on data quality cheks
•    Dealing with symmetric structures
•    Potential and limitations of machine learning-assisted pipelines to speedup data acquisition

Commonly used analyses:

•    PCA
•    Comparing groups
•    Linear models and testing for allometry


Wednesday– Classes 1-7 pm Berlin time

Combining analyses in a basic workflow:

•    Preliminary assessment of data quality
•    Typical basic workflow
 
Presentation and discussion of attendees’ analyses on their own data