Generally, biologists and mathematicians who study the shape and form of organisms have largely been working in isolation from those who work on evolutionary relationships through the analysis of common characteristics. Increasingly however, dialogue between the two communities is beginning to develop - but other than a handful of journal papers, there has been no formal, published discussion on this subject. This timely book summarises the interdisciplinary work that has taken place and will stimulate additional research into these topics. Any scientist working on evolutionary relationships will find this volume invaluable.

Introduction: Morphology, Shape and Phylogenetics. Homology, Characters and Continuous Variables. Quantitative Characters, Phylogenies, and Morphometrics. Scaling, Polymorphism and Cladistic Analysis. Overlapping Variables in Botanical Systems. Comparability, Morphometrics and Phylogenetic Systematics. Phylogenetic Signals in Morphometric Data. Creases as Morphometric Characters. Geometric Morphometrics and Phylogeny. A Parametric Bootstrap Approach to the Detection of Phylogenetic Signals in Landmark Data. Phylogenetic Tests for Differences in Shape and the Importance of Divergence Times: Eldredge's Enigma Explored. Ancestral States and Evolutionary Rates of Continuous Characters. Modelling the Evolution of Continuously Varying Characters on Phylogenetic Trees: the Case of Hominid Cranial Capacity. Summary.