THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

The traits that characterize living organisms-in particular, their morphology, physiology, behavior and genetic make-up-enable them to cope with forces of the physical as well as the biological and social environments that impinge on them. Moreover, since function follows form, traits provide the raw material upon which natural selection operates, thus shaping evolutionary trajectories and the history of life. Interestingly, most living organisms, from microscopic microbes to charismatic megafauna, reveal themselves visually and are routinely captured in copious images taken by humans from all walks of life. The resulting massive amount of image data has the potential to further our understanding of how multifaceted traits of organisms shape the behavior of individuals, collectives, populations, and the ecological communities they live in, as well as the evolutionary trajectories of the species they comprise. Images are increasingly the currency for documenting the details of life on..

Also known as: imageomics