Within carnivorans, cats show comparatively little disparity in overall morphology, with species differing mainly in body size. However, detailed shape analyses of individual osteological structures, such as limbs or skulls, have shown that felids display significant morphological differences that correlate with their observed ecological and behavioural ranges. Recently, these shape analyses have been extended to the felid axial skeleton. Results demonstrate a functionally-partitioned vertebral column, with regions varying greatly in level of correlation between shape and ecology. Moreover, a clear distinction is evident between a phylogenetically-constrained neck region and a selection-responsive posterior spine. Here, we test whether this regionalisation of function reflected in vertebral column shape is also translated into varying levels of phenotypic integration between this structure and most other skeletal elements. We accomplish this comparison by performing pairwise tests of integration between vertebral and other osteological units, quantified with 3D geometric morphometric data and analysed both with and without phylogenetic correction. To our knowledge, this is the first study to test for integration across a comprehensive sample of whole-skeleton elements. Our results show that, prior to corrections, strong covariation is present between vertebrae across the vertebral column and all other elements, with the exception of the femur. However, most of these significant correlations disappear after correcting for phylogeny, which is a significant influence on cranial and limb morphology of felids and other carnivorans. Our results thus suggest that the vertebral column of cats displays relative independence from other skeletal elements and may represent several distinct evolutionary morphological modules.

中文翻译：

---

椎骨和其他猫科动物的骨骼特征之间的形状协变（或缺乏）：整体并不总是大于部分之和。

在食肉动物中，猫的总体形态差异相对较小，种类主要在体型上有所不同。但是，对单个骨骼结构（如肢体或头骨）进行详细的形状分析后，发现猫科动物显示出明显的形态差异，与其观察到的生态和行为范围相关。最近，这些形状分析已扩展到猫的轴向骨骼。结果表明，在功能上划分了脊柱，区域在形状和生态之间的相关性水平上差异很大。而且，在系统发育受限的颈部区域和选择响应性后脊柱之间有明显的区别。这里，我们测试了这种反映在椎柱形状中的功能区域化是否也转化为该结构与大多数其他骨骼元素之间不同水平的表型整合。我们通过对椎骨和其他骨科单位之间进行整合的成对测试，使用3D几何形态学数据进行量化以及在有无系统发育校正的情况下进行分析来完成此比较。据我们所知，这是第一个测试对整个骨架元素的完整样本进行集成的测试。我们的结果表明，在进行校正之前，除股骨外，整个脊柱的椎骨与所有其他元素之间存在强协变。但是，大多数这些显着的相关性在校正系统发育后都消失了，这对猫科动物和其他食肉动物的颅骨和四肢形态有重要影响。因此，我们的结果表明，猫的椎骨柱相对于其他骨骼元素表现出相对独立性，并且可以代表几种不同的进化形态学模块。