Morphometrics fails to identify closely related ciliates that have the
same appearance, mostly because they vary in size through the clonal
cycle. Humans recognize shape, whereas computer programs like
Fisher-Mahalanobis Discriminant Analysis commonly are prone to recognize
by size. Has-or-has-not produces rather few characters.
The morphogenesis of ciliates uses random distribution statistics for
the taxonomy of ciliates, although the cell is cyclic and determined.
The arithmetic mean (AM), the standard deviation (SD) and the mode (M)
are determined, and so are genetic factors including clonal cycle
effects. Some cell regulation has long been developed in Paramecium by
James D. Berger and his associates.
It is now suggested that the mode of distance units with 10 %
percentiles is the most informative and logically applicible descripter.
Trigonometric variables should be used in morphometrics.
Paul R Earl
Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon
San Nicalas, NL, Mexico
