Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1
Associate professor Department of Fisheries, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.
2
Department of Fisheries, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran.
3
MSc. Department of Natural Resources Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran
4
Assistant Professor, Department of Natural Resources Engineering, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environment, Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
This work was conducted to evaluate the morphological variations of eleven species of the genus Alburnoides in Iran using geometric morphometric method. For this purpose, all species were sampled from different stations of six inland water basins. After photographing from their left side, 16 landmark-points were digitized on their images using tpsDig2 software. The data after Procrustes analysis were analyzed by multivariate statistical analysis including PCA, CVA and cluster analysis. Mantel test was used to investigate the relationship between morphological and geographical variations. The results showed significant differences among the studied Alburnoides species in terms of morphology (p < 0.05). Based on the results of PCA, A. samiii and A. nicolausi have higher morphological variations than others. CVA analysis also significantly differentiated A. nicolausi and A. qanati from others. Based on the cluster analysis, Alburnoides species were divided into two groups i.e. A. nicolausi and A. qanati in a cluster and others in another one. The greatest Mahahlanobis distance were obtained between A. holciki and A. nicolausi. The results of this study revealed the better ability of the Landmark-based geometric morphometric technique than that of the traditional one to show morphological differences in the members of the genus Alburnoides.
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