Geometric morphometric analysis of intratrackway variability: A case study on theropod and ornithopod dinosaur trackways from Münchehagen (Lower Cretaceous, Germany)
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Paleontology
- Keywords
- Lower Cretaceous, trackways, Germany, dinosaur tracks, Geometric morphometrics, theropods, ornithopods, fossil footprints, photogrammetry
- Copyright
- © 2016 Lallensack et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2016. Geometric morphometric analysis of intratrackway variability: A case study on theropod and ornithopod dinosaur trackways from Münchehagen (Lower Cretaceous, Germany) PeerJ Preprints 4:e2004v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.2004v1
Abstract
A profound understanding of the influence of trackmaker anatomy, foot movements and substrate properties is crucial for any interpretation of fossil tracks. In this case study we analyze variability of footprint shape within one large theropod (T3), one medium-sized theropod (T2) and one ornithopod (I1) trackway from the Lower Cretaceous of Münchehagen (Lower Saxony, Germany) in order to determine the informativeness of individual features and measurements for ichnotaxonomy, trackmaker identification, and the discrimination between left and right footprints. Landmark analysis is employed based on interpretative outline drawings derived from photogrammetric data, allowing for the location of variability within the footprint and the assessment of covariation of separate footprint parts. Objective methods to define the margins of a footprint are tested and shown to be sufficiently accurate to reproduce the most important results. The lateral hypex and the heel are the most variable regions in the two theropod trackways. As indicated by principal component analysis, a posterior shift of the lateral hypex is correlated with an anterior shift of the margin of the heel. This pattern is less pronounced in the ornithopod trackway, indicating that variation patterns can differ in separate trackways. In all trackways, hypices vary independently from each other, rendering their relative position a questionable feature for ichnotaxonomic purposes. Most criteria commonly employed to differentiate between left and right footprints assigned to theropods are found to be reasonably reliable. The described ornithopod footprints are asymmetrical, again allowing for a left-right differentiation. Strikingly, 12 out of 19 measured footprints of the T2 trackway are stepped over the trackway midline, rendering the trackway pattern a misleading left-right criterion for this trackway. Traditional measurements were unable to differentiate between the theropod and the ornithopod trackways. Geometric morphometric analysis reveals potential for improvement of existing discriminant methods.
Author Comment
This is a submission to PeerJ for review.
Supplemental Information
Supplemental figure S1 and S2: Principal component analysis results of steepest slope approach
Supplemental table S3: Measurements of trackway parameters
Measurements of trackway parameters
High-resolution version of the sitemap
Sitemap based on photogrammetric data showing the three analyzed trackways (T3, T2, and I1), which represent some of the longest dinosaur trackways from Germany. The proximal sections of the T3 and I1 trackways, excavated before 2011, were not included because photogrammetric documentation is not available. Possible continuations of the T3 and T2 trackways discovered in 2015 are also not included.
