Fluctuating Asymmetry: Methods, Theory, and Applications
By John H. Graham, Shmuel Raz, Hagit Zabrodsky Hel-Or, Eviatar Nevo. Symmetry, 2010
392 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Fluctuating asymmetry consists of random deviations from perfect symmetry in populations of organisms. It is a measure of developmental noise, which reflects a population’s average state of adaptation and coadaptation. Moreover, it increases under both environmental and genetic stress, though responses are often inconsistent. Researchers base studies of fluctuating asymmetry upon deviations from bilateral, radial, rotational, dihedral, translational, helical, and fractal symmetries. Here, we review old and new methods of measuring fluctuating asymmetry, including measures of dispersion, landmark methods for shape asymmetry, and continuous symmetry measures. We also review the theory, developmental origins, and applications of fluctuating asymmetry, and attempt to explain conflicting results. In the process, we present examples from the literature, and from our own research at “Evolution Canyon” and elsewhere.
Subfields: Ecology, Geometry and Topology, Paleontology
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3bcdc05f0661317f3ad11c41e48284fb5c5b94ae
How researchers see this paper
The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.
In Ecology
In Geometry and Topology
In Paleontology
Citations in the corpus
- Analyzing Fluctuating Asymmetry with Geometric Morphometrics: Concepts, Methods, and Applications (2015, background): “Traditionally, fluctuating asymmetry has been used as a measure of developmental instability [1–6,153,155], which can be correlated to various environmental or genetic factors.”
- Fluctuating asymmetry and exogenous stress in fishes: a review (2011, background): “…the relationship between FA and environmental stressors across broad phylogenetic scales (e.g., Leary and Allendorf 1989; Graham et al. 1993b; Moller 1997; Moller and Thornhill 1998; Hoffmann and Woods 2003; Leung et al. 2003; Graham et al. 2010), but none specifically address this issue in fishes.”