ASHLEY-ROSS, M.A.*; GILLIS, G.B.: A brief history of functional morphology

The discipline of functional morphology grew out of a descriptive comparative anatomical tradition; its transformation into a modern experimental science facilitated largely by technological advances. Early morphologists, such as Cuvier and Thompson, felt that function was predictable from organismal form, to the extent that animals and plants represented perfect adaptations to their habits. However, anatomy alone could not inform morphologists how organisms actually performed their activities. Recording techniques capable of capturing fast motion were first required to begin to understand animal movement. Muybridge is perhaps most famous for his pioneering work in fast photography, enabling him to “freeze” images of even the fastest horse at a full gallop. In fact, what functional morphologists now practice as kinematic analysis grew directly out of the techniques Muybridge developed. Marey, though lesser known than Muybridge, made perhaps an even greater contribution to experimental science through his invention of automatic apparati for recording events of animal motion. Thus functional morphologists could begin to make reasonable predictions of how the musculoskeletal system generated movement, as well as provide the structural foundations of form. In the middle of the 20th century, scientists discovered a way to record what the muscles of an awake, behaving animal were doing. The technique of electromyography, initially used extensively, in clinical applications, was co-opted as a tool of comparative functional anatomy by researchers such as Gans and colleagues. High-speed kinematic analysis and electromyography have for many years been the mainstay of experimental technique in functional morphology. In recent years, functional morphology has begun to branch out to incorporate approaches from other disciplines, and now stands at the threshold of becoming a truly integrative, central field in organismal biology.