Université de Bourgogne Franche Comté, Dijon, France.
Laboratoire Chrono-Environnement, UMR 6249, CNRS, Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Besançon, France.
J Morphol. 2022 Aug;283(8):1003-1014. doi: 10.1002/jmor.21485. Epub 2022 Jun 7.
Morphological studies often need to reference body size to correctly characterise the shape of organisms. In arthropods, the most commonly used reference for this is the length or width of the carapace, thorax, or the prosoma in the case of chelicerates. However, in the case of animals with unlimited growth, such as whip spiders, this measure could be irrelevant if growth is allometric. In this study, we analyse the ontogenetic modifications in prosoma outline shape in whip spiders during growth and compare the differences in shape between species. Differences are important for the relative prosoma width between species and, in the case of Damon medius, during growth in the juvenile stages, whereas the shape remains stable in mature stages. We conclude that a one-dimensional measure (i.e., length or width) suffices for mature specimens of a single species or family, but for larger studies, or when including immature specimens, at least the prosoma area (within the outline shape) should be used as a size estimator.
形态学研究通常需要参考体型大小来正确描述生物体的形状。在节肢动物中，最常用的参考标准是甲壳、胸部或螯肢动物的前体的长度或宽度。然而，对于像鞭蛛这样具有无限生长能力的动物来说，如果生长是异速生长的，那么这种测量方法可能就不相关了。在这项研究中，我们分析了鞭蛛在生长过程中前体轮廓形状的个体发育变化，并比较了不同物种之间的形状差异。这种差异对于物种之间的相对前体宽度很重要，而且对于 Damon medius 来说，在幼体阶段的生长过程中也是如此，而在前体成熟阶段，形状则保持稳定。我们的结论是，对于单一物种或家族的成熟标本来说，一维测量（即长度或宽度）就足够了，但对于更大的研究，或者当包括未成熟标本时，至少应该使用前体区域（在轮廓形状内）作为大小估计器。
