. Biology of the Heteromyidae. Heteromyidae. PA TTERNS OF MORPHOLOGIC AND MORPHOMETRIC VARIATION IN HETEROMYID RODENTS Troy L. Best. Introduction Studies of morphologic variation in het- eromyids historically have centered on delineating taxonomic relationships and rarely contained quantitative information beyond the cursory presentation of mea- surements of type specimens (, Dice, 1929;Grinnell, 1919;Merriam, 1894, 1902, 1904, 1907; Stephens, 1887). Descriptions such as "mastoid bullae more fully inflated" (Goldman, 1923:139), "mandible small for size of skull" (Merria
. Biology of the Heteromyidae. Heteromyidae. PA TTERNS OF MORPHOLOGIC AND MORPHOMETRIC VARIATION IN HETEROMYID RODENTS Troy L. Best. Introduction Studies of morphologic variation in het- eromyids historically have centered on delineating taxonomic relationships and rarely contained quantitative information beyond the cursory presentation of mea- surements of type specimens (, Dice, 1929;Grinnell, 1919;Merriam, 1894, 1902, 1904, 1907; Stephens, 1887). Descriptions such as "mastoid bullae more fully inflated" (Goldman, 1923:139), "mandible small for size of skull" (Merriam, 1894:110), or "out- line of the skull is more nearly that of an equilateral triangle" (Huey, 1951:241) were used to describe morphologic differences among taxa. Later, descriptions of mor- phology became oriented toward use of standard statistical descriptions, that is, mean, range, and standard deviation ( Hooper and Handley, 1948; Huey, 1951; Setzer, 1949). As the need for more detailed taxonomic assessments became apparent, partially because of the larger numbers of specimens from a larger number of collect- ing localities, so did the need for analyses with greater discriminating abilities. In the past 20 years there has been a trend toward quantifying morphologic variation using a variety of univariate and multivariate sta- tistical techniques. In addition to their use as tools in taxonomic studies, these tech- niques have provided the basis for detailed studies of patterns of morphologic variation within and among species. Although assessments of morphologic variation in heteromyids once centered on taxonomic implications, other aspects of these rodents' lifestyles have been ad- dressed by studying morphologic traits. For example, information on morphologic vari- ation within this family has led to assess- ments of predator avoidance and detection ( Dice and Blossom, 1937;Kotler, 1985; Webster, 1962; Webster and Webster, 1971), movement and locomotio
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