Measurement error

Authors
Affiliation

Floriane Remy

CNRS, Univ. Bordeaux, MCC – UMR 5199 PACEA

Frédéric Santos

CNRS, Univ. Bordeaux, MCC – UMR 5199 PACEA

Measurement error in morphometrics (for landmark data) is a wide topic that we will not fully cover here. However, exhaustive references do exist (; ; ; ; ). Here are some quick tips:

  1. Simple (but not very efficient) methods may consist in using intraclass correlation coefficients () or concordance correlation coefficients () directly on each coordinate (x,y,z) of each landmark.
  2. A simpler and more efficient method may consist in using principal component analysis: see Cucchi et al. () for a nice example.
  3. Finally, the R functions geomorph::gm.measurement.error() and/or geomorph::procD.lm() may be useful (or not, depending on the study design). See also this blog post.
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References

Arnqvist, G., and T. Martensson. 1998. “Measurement Error in Geometric Morphometrics: Empirical Strategies to Assess and Reduce Its Impact on Measures of Shape.” Acta Zoologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 44 (1): 73–96.
Bertsatos, Andreas, Elissavet Gkaniatsou, Christina Papageorgopoulou, and Maria-Eleni Chovalopoulou. 2019. “‘What and How Should We Share?’ An Inter-Method Inter-Observer Comparison of Measurement Error with Landmark-Based Craniometric Datasets.” Anthropologischer Anzeiger. https://doi.org/10.1127/anthranz/2019/1047.
Collyer, Michael L., and Dean C. Adams. 2024. “Interrogating Random and Systematic Measurement Error in Morphometric Data.” Evolutionary Biology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11692-024-09627-6.
Cucchi, T., A. Hulme-Beaman, J. Yuan, and K. Dobney. 2011. “Early Neolithic Pig Domestication at Jiahu, Henan Province, China: Clues from Molar Shape Analyses Using Geometric Morphometric Approaches.” Journal of Archaeological Science 38 (1): 11–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2010.07.024.
Fruciano, Carmelo. 2016. “Measurement Error in Geometric Morphometrics.” Development Genes and Evolution 226 (3): 139–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00427-016-0537-4.
Koo, Terry K., and Mae Y. Li. 2016. “A Guideline of Selecting and Reporting Intraclass Correlation Coefficients for Reliability Research.” Journal of Chiropractic Medicine 15 (2): 155–63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcm.2016.02.012.
Lin, Lawrence. 1989. “A Concordance Correlation Coefficient to Evaluate Reproducibility.” Biometrics 45 (1): 255. https://doi.org/10.2307/2532051.
Menéndez, Lumila Paula. 2017. “Comparing Methods to Assess Intraobserver Measurement Error of 3D Craniofacial Landmarks Using Geometric Morphometrics Through a Digitizer Arm.” Journal of Forensic Sciences 62 (3): 741–46. https://doi.org/10.1111/1556-4029.13301.