New and Exciting in PLoS ONE

There are 12 new articles in PLoS ONE today. As always, you should rate the articles, post notes and comments and send trackbacks when you blog about the papers. You can now also easily place articles on various social services (CiteULike, Connotea, Stumbleupon, Facebook and Digg) with just one click. Here are my own picks for the week - you go and look for your own favourites:

An Examination of Morphometric Variations in a Neotropical Toad Population (Proceratophrys cristiceps, Amphibia, Anura, Cycloramphidae):

The species Proceratophrys cristiceps belongs to the genus Proceratophrys within the family Cycloramphidae. These amphibians are found exclusively in South America in the morphoclimatic domain of the semi-arid depression zones in northeastern Brazil known as the Caatinga. We examined intrapopulational variation using univariate and multivariate statistics with traditional and geometric morphometrics, which supported the existence of two morphotypes of this species. Our results indicated significant degrees of variation in skeletal characteristics between some natural populations of this species. Careful analyses of variability levels are fundamental to avoid taxonomic errors, principally in populations that demonstrate characteristics intimately associated with their area of occurrence, as is the case of Proceratophrys cristiceps.

Size Variation in Small-Bodied Humans from Palau, Micronesia:

Recent discoveries on Palau are claimed to represent the remains of small-bodied humans that may display evidence insular size reduction. This claim has yet to be statistically validated. Published postcranial specimens (n = 16) from Palau were assessed relative to recent small-bodied comparative samples. Resampling statistical approaches were employed to test specific hypotheses relating to body size in the Palau sample. Results confirm that the Palau postcranial sample is indisputably small-bodied. A single, homogenous body size morph is represented in early prehistoric postcrania from Palau. Small body size in early Palauans is an ancestral characteristic and was likely not a consequence of in-situ size reduction. Specimens from Palau have little bearing upon hypothesised insular size reduction in the ancestral lineage of Homo floresiensis.

This is the third paper in a series, discussing this controversial find. The first two papers are:

Small-Bodied Humans from Palau, Micronesia
and
Small Scattered Fragments Do Not a Dwarf Make: Biological and Archaeological Data Indicate that Prehistoric Inhabitants of Palau Were Normal Sized