Data from: Morphological integration during postnatal ontogeny: Implications for evolutionary biology

How covariance patterns of phenotypes change during development is fundamental for a broader understanding of evolution. There is compelling evidence that mammalian cranium covariance patterns change during ontogeny. However, it is unclear to what extent variation in covariance patterns during ontogeny can impact the response to selection. To tackle this question we explored: i) the extent to which covariance patterns change during postnatal ontogeny; ii) in which ontogenetic stages covariance patterns differ the most, and iii) the extent to which the phenotypic covariance pattern at different ontogenetic stages can be explained by the same processes determining additive genetic covariance. We sampled postnatal ontogenetic series for both marsupials, and placentals. Within each ontogenetic series, we compared covariance matrices (P-matrices) at different ontogenetic stages. Furthermore, we compared these P-matrices to two target matrices [adult P-matrix and an additive genetic covarianc..., The traits are 35 linear distances derived from the 3D coordinates of 32 homologous landmarks measured on all specimens using a 3D digitizer. All specimens were measured with the same instrument (Microscribe MX; Immersion Corporation, San Jose, California) with the exception of adult Sapajus that were measured with a 3Draw digitizer (Polhemus Inc., Colchester, Vermont). ,表型协方差模式在发育过程中的变化规律，是深入理解演化进程的核心基础。已有确凿证据表明，哺乳动物颅骨的协方差模式在个体发育过程中会发生改变。然而，目前尚不清楚个体发育过程中协方差模式的变异能够在多大程度上影响选择响应。为解答这一科学问题，本研究开展了三项探索：其一，产后个体发育阶段协方差模式的变化幅度；其二，协方差模式差异最显著的个体发育阶段；其三，不同发育阶段的表型协方差模式可由调控加性遗传协方差（additive genetic covariance）的同一过程解释的程度。我们分别采集了有袋类与胎盘类哺乳动物的产后个体发育序列样本。在每一组个体发育序列中，我们对不同发育阶段的协方差矩阵（P-matrices）进行了比较。此外，我们还将这些P-matrices与两类目标矩阵[成年个体P-matrix以及加性遗传协方差（原文此处未完整表述）……]进行了比对。本研究的性状为35个线性距离变量，所有变量均基于32个同源地标点的三维坐标计算得到，这些地标点通过三维数字化仪在全部标本上采集获得。所有标本均使用同一台仪器（Microscribe MX；美国加利福尼亚州圣何塞市Immersion公司）进行测量，唯有成年卷尾猴属（Sapajus）标本采用3Draw数字化仪（美国佛蒙特州科尔切斯特市Polhemus公司）完成测量。