Morphological study of Genus Alburnoides Jeitteles, 1861 in Iran

The members of genus Alburnoides (Jeitteles, 1861) have a great distribution ininland water of Iran. The present study was conducted by collectio of 400 specimensfrom different populations belonging to four species of Alburnoides includingAlburnoides eichwaldii (Caspian Sea basin), A. namaki (Namak basin), A. nicolausiand A. idignensis (Tigris basin) to comparison of their morphological characteristicsusing geometric morphometric method. To remove the effects of allometric growthpattern, the specimens with total length of greater 5o mm were selected.The left sideof their lateral view were photographed and eighteen landmark-points were definedand digitize on 2D pictures. PCA, CVA and Cluster analyses in PAST and MorphoJwere used to analyze landmark data. Then, the pattern of body shape variations inpopulations and species in relation to consensus configuration were visualized usingwireframe in MorphoJ software. The results showed a significant difference amongstudied groups (P<0.001) but between two Sefidrood populations as well as betweenthat of Ali-Abad and Chehel-Chai. The observed differences can reveal thephenotypic plasticity of these fish associated with different habitats, the effect ofgeographical distances and their evolutionary path of the member of genusAlburnoides.

Keywords:

Caspian Sea , Alburnoides , Geometric morphometrics , Morphology