Morphological Variability of the Aspius aspius taeniatus (Eichwald, 1831) in the Southern Caspian Sea Basin

Abstract

Traditional morphometric measurements and meristic counts were used to investigate the hypothesis of population fragmentation of Mash mahi, Aspius aspius taeniatus (Eichwald, 1831) among two fishing areas in southern Caspian Sea basin(Tonekabon:32 specimens and Sari:34 specimens ). Univariate analysis of variance showed significant differences between the means of the two groups for 12 out of 26 standardized morphometric measurement and three out of nine meristic counts. In discriminant function analysis (DFA), the proportion of individuals correctly classified into their original groups was 82.1% and 61.2% for morphometric and meristic characteristics, respectively. Clustering based on Euclidean distances among groups of centroids using an UPGMA and also principal component analysis’ results (PCA) for morphometric and meristic data indicated that two samples of Mash mahi were distinct from each other in these regions, while there were a relatively high degree of overlap between two locations.