Morphometrics and paleoecology of Catenipora (Tabulata) from the Xiazhen Formation (Upper Ordovician), Zhuzhai, South China

Catenipora is one of the most common tabulate coral genera occurring in various lithofacies in the Upper Ordovician Xiazhen Formation at Zhuzhai in South China. A combination of traditional multivariate analysis and geometric morphometrics is applied to a large number of specimens to distinguish and identify species. Based on three major principal components extracted from 11 morphological characters, three major groups as determined by the cluster-analysis dendrogram are considered to be morphospecies. Their validity and distinctiveness are confirmed by discriminant analysis, descriptive statistics, and bivariate plots. Tabularium area and common wall thickness are the most meaningful characters to distinguish the three morphospecies. Geometric morphometrics is adopted to compare the morphospecies with types and/or figured specimens of species previously reported from the vicinity of Zhuzhai. Despite discrepancies in corallite size, principal component analysis and discriminant analysi...