Publication: The exchangeability of shape
Issued Date
2010-10-26
Resource Type
ISSN
17560500
Other identifier(s)
2-s2.0-77958041867
Rights
Mahidol University
Rights Holder(s)
SCOPUS
Bibliographic Citation
BMC Research Notes. Vol.3, (2010)
Suggested Citation
Jean Pierre Al Dujardin, Dramane Kaba, Amy B. Henry The exchangeability of shape. BMC Research Notes. Vol.3, (2010). doi:10.1186/1756-0500-3-266 Retrieved from: https://repository.li.mahidol.ac.th/handle/123456789/28614
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Authors
Journal Issue
Thesis
Title
The exchangeability of shape
Author(s)
Abstract
Background. Landmark based geometric morphometrics (GM) allows the quantitative comparison of organismal shapes. When applied to systematics, it is able to score shape changes which often are undetectable by traditional morphological studies and even by classical morphometric approaches. It has thus become a fast and low cost candidate to identify cryptic species. Due to inherent mathematical properties, shape variables derived from one set of coordinates cannot be compared with shape variables derived from another set. Raw coordinates which produce these shape variables could be used for data exchange, however they contain measurement error. The latter may represent a significant obstacle when the objective is to distinguish very similar species. Results. We show here that a single user derived dataset produces much less classification error than a multiple one. The question then becomes how to circumvent the lack of exchangeability of shape variables while preserving a single user dataset. A solution to this question could lead to the creation of a relatively fast and inexpensive systematic tool adapted for the recognition of cryptic species. Conclusions. To preserve both exchangeability of shape and a single user derived dataset, our suggestion is to create a free access bank of reference images from which one can produce raw coordinates and use them for comparison with external specimens. Thus, we propose an alternative geometric descriptive system that separates 2-D data gathering and analyzes. © 2010 Dujardin et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.