Arching effect on fish body shape in geometric morphometric studies

Upward and downward arching of the body was observed during a study on redfishes Sebastes sp. population structure in the north‐west Atlantic Ocean. The present study investigated the potential causes of this arching artefact. The results suggested that it is not related to biological factors (size...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Fish Biology
Main Authors: Valentin, A. E., Penin, X., Chanut, J.‐P., Sévigny, J.‐M., Rohlf, F. J.
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Wiley 2008
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Online Access:http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1095-8649.2008.01961.x
https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Fj.1095-8649.2008.01961.x
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1095-8649.2008.01961.x
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Summary:Upward and downward arching of the body was observed during a study on redfishes Sebastes sp. population structure in the north‐west Atlantic Ocean. The present study investigated the potential causes of this arching artefact. The results suggested that it is not related to biological factors (size or species) or to the preservation technique (freezing), but is rather due to slight posture differences between fishes during landmark capture. The consequences of the arching artefact on data analysis are discussed. An approach coupling a PCA‐based model of the arching with Burnaby’s orthogonal projection is proposed for removing the artefact from the data.