Darwin-L Message Log 5:147 (January 1994)

Academic Discussion on the History and Theory of the Historical Sciences

This is one message from the Archives of Darwin-L (1993–1997), a professional discussion group on the history and theory of the historical sciences.

Note: Additional publications on evolution and the historical sciences by the Darwin-L list owner are available on SSRN.

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<5:147>From mcnsr24@cc.csic.es  Wed Jan 26 08:11:41 1994

Date: Wed, 26 Jan 1994 15:13:26 UTC+0100
From: Santiago Reig <mcnsr24@cc.csic.es>
Subject: Self introduction
To: darwin-l@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu

!Hola!

   I'm a very satisfied subscriber of this list, obeying the
edict of our brilliant list owner for self-introduction. I'm a
zoologist interested in evolutionary biology. The group of creatures I
work with are mammals, mainly carnivores and rodents (i.e. martens,
weasels, gophers). The biological problems that I like to investigate are
related to the study of morphological variability and its consequences.
Description of variation, asking why and trying to predict biological
patterns. In particular, the study of geographic variation within
species. This is a very amazing problem in species that have large
ranges of distribution through different habitats, climates, etc.
Somehow is like having a semi-experimental approach to biological
problems that can't be manipulated: instead of putting a species into
two different habitats and see how that affects their morphology, we
can study the morphology of populations living under different
environments. Besides geographic factors, you can also study other
aspects that can produce variation, like sex or age. You can do also
comparative analysis of these factors of variation among closely related
taxa and see the importance of these patterns in evolution, the cross-
interaction of all these factors of variation ...

     The tool I use are calipers --now digitizing devices-- to take
measurements in the skull and other bones of the skeleton of large
series of museum specimens. Then I use statistics to try to find patterns
of variation.

Congratulations to the list owner for nursing the group. It's really
exciting to watch live discussion of "big guys" that find a minute --I
know they only need that to write something good!!-- to add their two
cents.

Thank you!

Santiago Reig
Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, CSIC
Jose Gutierrez Abascal 2
28006 MADRID, Spain

Voice: 1- 411 1328 ext. 1129
FAX: 1- 564 5078      "MCNSR24@CC.CSIC.ES"

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