Finite Element Analysis and Understanding the Biomechanics and Evolution of Living and Fossil Organisms Emily J. Rayfield Department of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol, Wills Memorial Building, Queens Road, Bristol, BS8 1RJ, United Kingdom; email: e.rayfield@bristol.ac.uk Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2007. 35:541–76 First published online as a Review in Advance on January 29, 2007 The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences is online at earth.annualreviews.org This article’s doi: 10.1146/annurev.earth.35.031306.140104 Copyright c  2007 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved 0084-6597/07/0530-0541$20.00 Key Words biomechanics, stress, strain, functional morphology, skull, feeding Abstract Finite element analysis (FEA) is a technique that reconstructs stress, strain, and deformation in a digital structure. Although common- place in engineering and orthopedic science for more than 30 years, only recently has it begun to be adopted in the zoological and pa- leontological sciences to address questions of organismal morphol- ogy, function, and evolution. Current research tends to focus on ei- ther deductive studies that assume a close relationship between form and function or inductive studies that aim to test this relationship, although explicit hypothesis-testing bridges these two standpoints. Validation studies have shown congruence between in vivo or in vitro strain and FE-inferred strain. Future validation work on a broad range of taxa will assist in phylogenetically bracketing our extinct animal FE-models to increase confidence in our input parameters, although currently, FEA has much potential in addressing questions of form-function relationships, providing appropriate questions are asked of the existing data. 541 Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2007.35:541-576. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by Monash University on 05/27/08. For personal use only.