Every year from 2018 to 2024 I have given a 5-day course in geometric morphometrics organized by the Berlin-based company Physalia Courses.
Starting from 2025, I am offering with the same company two online courses:
- a 3-day course on Foundations of geometric morphometrics (3-5 February 2025)
- a 5-day course on Multidimensional phenotypic evolution (10-14 March 2025)
Geometric morphometrics is a modern and widely used set of tools for the analysis of shape. This set of techniques is extremely popular among researchers in areas as diverse as ecology, evolutionary biology, anthropology, and archaeology.
You can read an intuitive, brief and informal explanation of what geometric morphometrics is in this website’s page on geometric morphometrics.
Topics and target audience
Shape change in a sample of macropodoid marsupials (kangaroos and other related groups) - unpublished results from Fruciano et al 2017 - Ecology and Evolution
Foundations of geometric morphometrics is aimed in particular at beginners and is more focused on acquiring 2D and 3D geometric morphometric data and its manipulation with limited coverage of downstream statistical analyses. You may read
Multidimensional phenotypic evolution focuses on downstream analysis to make sense of multidimensional phenotypic data, including – but not limited to – geometric morphometric data. Indeed, these analytical technique can be used also on other phenotypes (e.g., traditional phenotypes, gene expression).
Shared manuscript, customised advice and collaboration
For both courses, all participants are encouraged to work on their data, in addition to the common dataset. This allows me to give customised advice to each participant on their project which, in turn, usually results in participants speeding up their own projects and publications.
I also sometimes offer participants to my course the possibility of being involved in one of my own studies/manuscripts.
In particular, participants of the 2018 edition have co-authored a paper in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
For the online editions, collaboration is more complicated so I usually offer the possibility to enroll in some project with me after the course.
In any case, the idea is to offer participants the kind of extra exposure to (geometric morphometric) methods in a practical setting that cannot be compressed in a 5-day course. All of this without sacrificing quality of instruction for those participants who may not want to participate.
Clearly, no promises of co-authorship can be made in advance as these depends on individual involvement and level of intellectual contribution. Similarly, it is hard to evaluate in advance the final outcome of a real research study. However, this typically works quite well, with most participants to the course enthusiastically participating to the study, getting more exposure and co-authoring a paper.