Structural analysis of network models in tetrapod skulls : evolutionary trends and structural constraints in morphological complexity, integration an…

2013

Background Ever since classic anatomists like George Cuvier, Geoffroy St. Hilaire, or Richard Owen laid down the fundamental principles of comparative anatomy in the 19th century, connections among anatomical parts have been essential for the recognition of biological homologies. However, few studies have addressed the possibility of implementing an adequate methodological tool to use connections among parts to unveil problems in morphology; although Woodger, Rashevsky, Riedl, and, more recently, Rasskin-Gutman pointed in this direction. In the last decades Network Theory has been developed as a novel conceptual and methodological framework to deal with the relational properties that emerge…