Orthogonal projections and bootstrap resampling procedures in the study of infraspecific variation

the effect of an increase in quantitative continuous characters resulting from indeterminate growth upon the analysis of population differentiation was investigated using, as an example, a set of continuous characters measured as distance variables in 10 populations of a rodent species. the data before and after correction for allometric size effects using orthogonal projections were analyzed with a parametric bootstrap resampling procedure applied to canonical variate analysis. the variance component of the distance measures attributable to indeterminate growth within the populations was found to be substantial, although the ordination of the populations was not affected, as evidenced by the relative and absolute positions of the centroids. the covariance pattern of the distance variables used to infer the nature of the morphological differences was strongly influenced by indeterminate growth. the uncorrected data produced a misleading picture of morphological differentiation by indicating that groups of populations differed in size. however, the data corrected for allometric effects clearly demonstrated that populations differed morphologically both in size and shape. these results are discussed in terms of the analysis of morphological differentiation among populations and the definition of infraspecific geographic units.