MB170P117 Practical course of ecomorphology and evolutionary biology

This course deals with particular model exercises from evolutionary ecology. Students become acquainted with the application of basic morphometric, statistic and phylogenetic methods, which are traditionally used in ecomorphology. The demonstration of the basic ecomorphological adaptations in zoological collections will be supplemented with the solving of the specific model problems using real datasets.
The aim of the course is to inform students of intra-taxonomic diversification of shapes and sizes in selected groups of animals and their ecomorphological and phylogenetical interpretation.

1. Analysis of body size and body shape on the model species of the leopard gecko. Application of various growth models (Statistica). 
2. The second task is focused on the comparison of geometric (tpsUTIL, tpsDIG, CoordGen, TMorphGen, BigFix, PCAGenCVAGen, TwoGroup, MorphoJ) and linear morphometry. 
3. Physical and physiological perception of colours, spectrophotometry and visual modeling. 
4. Effect of phylogeny on biological data. Familiarization with Mesquite, which is meant for phylogenetic analysis, a creation of cladograms, phylogenetic corrections of quantitative data, reconstruction of ancestral states and Felsenstein’s independent contrasts.Comparison with other phylogenetic programs (Compare, R Ape package)