The application of functional morphology to evolutionary studies

Studies of functional morphology contribute in several ways to the understanding of evolutionary patterns and processes. The former include the unravelling of dependencies of characters and the construction of biomechanically feasible transformation schemes. Among the latter are the identification of structural novelties that facilitate a cascade of diverse structural changes, and the identification of mechanisms that enable the incorporation of evolutionary novelties into the integrated organism. The study of mechanisms that maintain the match between form and function during evolutionary (and developmental) changes is a new and important area for evolutionary biologists.