This study is carried out to examine the meristic characteristics and variations in the body shape of the red stone lapper, Garra rufa (Heckel, 1843) living in many river systems including the Tigris, Jarrahi, Zohreh, and Mond Basins using geometric and classical morphometric methods. The morphological differences of twelve populations of red stone lapper, G. rufa from Iranian inland water basins were studied using meristic, morphometric, and geometric (Landmark-point) methods. For this aim, twelve meristic characters were counted, nineteen classical morphometrics were measured, and sixteen ratios were calculated. As for the geometric part, thirteen homologous landmark-points were digitized using tpsDig2 software. All analyses showed significant differences in seven meristic and nineteen morphometric characters among the populations. Further analyses including PCA, CVA, and CA of geometric data have shown that there are significant differences in the head region and dorsal-fin base among the G. rufa populations. These results suggest that classical and geometric morphometric methods can distinguish red stone lapper populations of the Iranian inland waters from each other; the differences in body shape suggest that habitat parameters including physicochemical parameters may have caused these patterns of variation in the body shape of fishes.
کلید واژگان :Garra rufa, Variation, Habitat, Geography, Plasticity
ارزش ریالی : 350000 ریال
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