Horstmann Martin, Topham Alexander T, Stamm Petra, Kruppert Sebastian, Colbourne John K, Tollrian Ralph, Weiss Linda C
Department of Animal Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Bochum, Germany.
School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, United Kingdom.
PeerJ. 2018 Jun 8;6:e4861. doi: 10.7717/peerj.4861. eCollection 2018.
Quantitative analysis of shape and form is critical in many biological disciplines, as context-dependent morphotypes reflect changes in gene expression and physiology, e.g., in comparisons of environment-dependent phenotypes, forward/reverse genetic assays or shape development during ontogenesis. 3D-shape rendering methods produce models with arbitrarily numbered, and therefore non-comparable, mesh points. However, this prevents direct comparisons. We introduce a workflow that allows the generation of comparable 3D models based on several specimens. Translocations between points of modelled morphotypes are plotted as heat maps and statistically tested. With this workflow, we are able to detect, model and investigate the significance of shape and form alterations in all spatial dimensions, demonstrated with different morphotypes of the pond-dwelling microcrustacean . Furthermore, it allows the detection even of inconspicuous morphological features that can be exported to programs for subsequent analysis, e.g., streamline- or finite-element analysis.
形状和形态的定量分析在许多生物学学科中至关重要，因为依赖于上下文的形态型反映了基因表达和生理学的变化，例如在环境依赖性表型的比较、正向/反向遗传分析或个体发育过程中的形状发育方面。三维形状渲染方法生成的模型具有任意编号的网格点，因此不可比较。然而，这阻碍了直接比较。我们引入了一种工作流程，该流程允许基于多个标本生成可比较的三维模型。将建模形态型各点之间的易位绘制为热图并进行统计检验。通过这种工作流程，我们能够检测、建模并研究所有空间维度中形状和形态改变的意义，这在池塘微甲壳动物的不同形态型中得到了证明。此外，它甚至能够检测到不明显的形态特征，这些特征可以导出到程序中进行后续分析，例如流线分析或有限元分析。
