Table I


 
tangent
approx.: 
Porch '88
U.Tenn.
Canton S
Procrustes:  m f m f m f
Porch '88 m 0 15.00 24.59 19.54 20.32 21.79
f 15.00 0 33.85 23.70 27.65 20.03
U. Tenn. m 24.59 33.86 0 14.06 21.44 29.39
f 19.54 23.70 14.06 0 19.22 20.01
Canton S m 20.32 27.66 21.45 19.23 0 14.89
f 21.79 20.03 29.40 20.01 14.90 0

Table I.  Morphological distance matrix of Procrustes distances (lower triangular matrix) and tangent space approximations (upper triangular matrix) between averaged landmark coordinates of the two sexes (m/f) of three Drosophila melanogaster strains. The tabulated distances are seen to be not exactly symetrical due to the fact that differences in tangent space are exhibited as rotations of landmarks on a spherical surface while Procrustes distances are measured as differences on a plane in Euclidean space.  A chord connecting points on the sphere underestimates the surface distance between two points moreso for distant points on the sphere.  When shape differences are small, as is the case with the Drosophila wing dimorphisms, the difference between the two measures is very small (here seen as at most a unit smaller difference in the fourth significant digit of the larger approximations).  This was confirmed by application of the tpsSmall program which measured the correlation between Procrustes and tangent space differences to be very close to unity. The calculated distances for Procrustes (shape space) and its tangent approximation (tangent space) are by deffinition not equal, but are usually close to equal when differences in shape are small. This direct confirmation of the close equivalence of Procrustes distances and their tangent space approximations further argues that the proceding analysis using thin plate splines (done in tangent space) is not a distortion of reality.  Trees were subsequently built using the Phylip distance matrix algorithms from symetric Procrustes matrices.  It is seen that similarly small Procrustes distances are obtained by comparing male and females within each strain. 

Last Update: 97/06/16

Name: Joe Kunkel