▪ Abstract Variation in the subtle differences between right and left sides of bilateral
characters, or fluctuating asymmetry (FA), has long been considered to be primarily …

Developmental mechanisms are usually assumed to evolve by natural selection of the
morphological traits they produce. Therefore, information on phenotypic traits is an important …

Although fluctuating asymmetry has become popular as a measure of developmental
instability, few studies have examined its developmental basis. We propose an approach to …

Abstract. Developmental integration is the covariation among morphological structures due
to connections between the developmental processes that built them. Here we use the …

Organisms are built from distinct modules, which are internally coherent but flexible in their
relationships among one another. We examined morphological variation within and …

Although the terminology used in studies of developmental instability refers explicitly to
development, this field of research has largely existed in isolation from mainstream …

This study introduces a new multivariate approach for analyzing the effects of quantitative
trait loci (QTL) on shape and demonstrates this method for the mouse mandible. We …

This paper takes the study of fluctuating asymmetry (FA) beyond its conventional use as a
measure of developmental instability, and turns it into a new research tool for evolutionary …

Three widely used methods of estimating fluctuating asymmetry may yield serious
overestimates if directional asymmetry is present. When two sides of a bilateral trait grow at …

Although numerous studies have found that fluctuating asymmetry (FA) can have a heritable
component, the genetic and developmental basis of FA is poorly understood. We used a …