MASSTIMATE (version 1.2)

QE: Body Mass Estimates Using Campione and Evans 2012

Description

This function presents the bivariate regression equations from Campione and Evans (2012) for esimating body mass in terretrial vertebartes using the combined humeral and femoral circumferences

Usage

QE(HC, FC, equation = c("raw","phylocor"), data = NULL)

Arguments

HC

a value or vector representing humeral circumference (in mm)

FC

a value or vector representing femoral circumference (in mm)

equation

desired estimation equation. Two possible choices (See Details)

data

an optional object of class = "data.frame" or class = "matrix"

Value

• Four numeric values or columns are returned:
• log.QE
  A numeric value or vector representing the mass estimate(s) in log10 grams
• QE
  A numeric value or vector representing the mass estimate(s) in grams
• upper.QE
  A numeric value or vector representing the upper prediction error based on that derived for the specific equation by Campione and Evans (2012)
• lower.QE
  A numeric value or vector representing the lower prediction error

Details

The function includes two different equations. equation = "raw" applies the non-phylogenetically corrected regression equation - equation 1 of Campione and Evans (2012). equation = "phylocor" applies the phylogenetically corrected regression equation - equation 2 of Campione and Evans (2012).

If a data object is specified, the mass estiamtes and additional results will be added as columns to the data.frame or matrix within that object.

References

Campione, N. E. and Evans, D. C. (2012) A universal scaling relationship between body mass and proximal limb bone dimensions in quadrupedal terrestrial tetrapods. BMC Biology, 10, 60.

See Also

cQE quadrupeds MR AHR1985 MCF2004

Examples

##Dinosaur data from Campione and Evans (2012) for quadrupedal dinosaurs
data(dinos)

##Combined equation based on the raw regression
QE(dinos$HC, dinos$FC, equation = "raw", data = dinos)

##Combined equation based on the phylogenetically corrected regression, data not specified
QE(dinos$HC, dinos$FC, equation = "phylocor")