The magnitude of morphological integration is a major aspect of multivariate evolution,
providing a simple measure of the intensity of association between morphological traits …

Integration and modularity refer to the patterns and processes of trait interaction and
independence. Both terms have complex histories with respect to both conceptualization …

Background Comparing patterns of divergence among separate lineages or groups has
posed an especially difficult challenge for biologists. Recently a new, conceptually simple …

Many morphological, behavioral, physiological, and life-history traits covary across the
biological scales of individuals, populations, and species. However, the processes that …

Meaningful comparison of variation in quantitative trait requires controlling for both the
dimension of the varying entity and the dimension of the factor generating variation …

Thinking about the evolutionary causes and consequences of trait correlations has been
dominated by quantitative genetics theory that is focused on hypothetical loci. Since this …

Biological systems, from molecular complexes to whole organisms and ecological
interactions, tend to have a modular organization. Modules are sets of traits that are …

Patterns of integration and modularity among organismal traits are prevalent across the tree
of life, and at multiple scales of biological organization. Over the past several decades …

Morphological integration and modularity are closely related concepts about how different
traits of an organism are correlated. Integration is the overall pattern of intercorrelation; …

Abstract Analysis of trait covariation plays a pivotal role in the study of phenotypic evolution.
The magnitude of covariation is often quantified with statistics based on dispersion of …