Conceptual and methodological issues in insect ecomorphology

Ecomorphology can be defined as a research field that investigates the ecological and evolutionary consequences of animal construction by integrating the function (biomechanics) and form (morphology) of animals in their relationship to the environment. The conceptual framework of this research field is reviewed here, with a distinction being made between the ‘morphological-comparative concept’ (having emerged from the field of functional morphology) and the ‘ecological-correlative concept’ (representing a trait-based statistically correlative approach). Although the development of the field has mainly been driven by vertebrate morphologists, this review shows that, notably, insects represent a clade that deserves more ecomorphological research because of their tremendous species diversity connected to their enormous morphofunctional disparity. Based on the morphology–performance–ecology–fitness paradigm, research problems are examined regarding the benefits that accrue to morphologists who integrate ecological thinking into their research programmes and to ecologists who consider the functional mechanisms behind their research subjects.