Morphometrics Workshop -- June 10 - 23, 1990, Stony Brook, New York

形态计量学是对形状和形状变化的研究，它结合了几何学和统计学的各个方面。形态计量学在系统生物学中有着广泛的应用：定量描述物种及其差异；进化的：对个体生物发育和谱系进化过程中发生的变化的描述；对影响这些差异和变化的过程的研究。形态测量学领域在过去十年中取得了迅速的进展，这源于由微型计算机驱动的桌面图像分析系统的可用性，以及几种捕获生物形状信息的新概念方法的发展。生物形态计量学进一步发展的限制因素是缺乏适当的微型计算机软件，以及研究人员在试图在其研究中使用形态计量学时所面临的高培训门槛。1988年，美国国家科学基金会的系统生物学项目在密歇根大学资助了一个为期两周的培训研讨会，在此期间，35名教员级别的研究人员接受了形态计量学的实践培训。自那次讲习班以来，教员们开发了一套新的软件包，将于1990年与讲习班论文集一起出版。Michael Bell博士和F. James Rohlf提议在纽约州立大学石溪分校举办第二个为期两周的形态测量学培训研讨会。会议文集和相关软件将是课程中使用的主要材料，该课程将培训大约30名系统生物学研究人员使用最新的形态计量学方法。拟议的培训讲习班将对整个系统生物学和进化生物学产生广泛的影响。与会者将代表不同的分类小组和研究理念，他们将在研讨会结束后返回主办机构，准备使用和教授使用一种重要的新研究工具。他们将能够为设备采购和形态计量学研究撰写竞争性拨款提案。在研讨会期间，将讨论可能的新方法，形态计量学在系统研究中的地位将采取新的形式。研讨会将是软件发布前的一次重要测试。诸如此类的培训讲习班是传播新方法和新技术的经济有效的方式。

Morphometrics is the study of shape and shape change, and it combines aspects of geometry and statistics. Morphometrics has wide applications in systematic biology: quantitative description of species and their differences; characterization of the changes that occur during the development of an individual organism and the evolution of a lineage; and the study of processes that impact on these differences and changes. The field of morphometrics has made rapid advances in the past decade, stemming from the availability of desk-top image analysis systems driven by microcomputers, and the development of several new conceptual approaches to the capture of biological shape information. The limiting factors to the further growth of biological morphometrics have been the lack of appropriate microcomputer software, and the high training threshold that investigators face when attempting to use morphometrics in their research. The Systematic Biology Program of the National Science Foundation supported a two-week training workshop at the University of Michigan in 1988, during which 35 faculty-level researchers were given hands-on training in morphometrics. Since that workshop, a new battery of software packages have been developed by the instructors, to be published with the Workshop Proceedings volume in 1990. Dr. Michael Bell and F. James Rohlf propose a second two-week morphometrics training workshop, to be held on the Stony Brook campus of the State University of New York. The Proceedings volume and associated software will be the principal material used in the course, which will train approximately 30 systematic biology researchers in the latest approaches to morphometrics. The proposed training workshop will have wide implications throughout systematic and evolutionary biology. The participants will represent different taxonomic groups and research philosophies, and they will return to their host institutions after the workshop prepared to use and teach the use of an important new research tool. They will be in a position to write competitive grant proposals for equipment acquisition and morphometric research. During the workshop, possible new approaches will be discussed and the place of morphometrics in systematic research will take new form. The workshop will be an important test of the software prior to publication. Training workshops such as this are cost-effective ways to disseminate new methodologies and technologies.