Meristic and morphometric analyses of Mugilidae (Actinopterygii) species.

GONZÁLEZ CASTRO, M.; IBÁÑEZ, A. L.; HERAS, S.; ROLDÁN, M. I; M. B. COUSSEAU.

La Plata, Argentina

Jornada; Primer Encuentro de Morfometría "Morfometría Geométrica y Estudios Filogenéticos".; 2010

Asociación de Antropología Biológica Argentina

  Mugilidae members are ray- fin fishes that usually inhabit coastal marine and brackish waters in tropical and temperate seas. Due to their resemblance the specific identification is still a problematical task. The aim of this work was to perform a morphometric and meristic analysis of some representative species of Mugilidae in order to find useful variables for species discrimination. A total of 135 specimens belonging to three genera (Mugil, Liza and Chelon) and eight localities were analyzed. An ANOVA was performed to evaluate significant differences between species/ localities for the meristic characters, followed by a Tukey HSD as Post Hoc Test. Three morfometric methods were employed: lineal measurements (LiM); landmarks and interlandmarks distances (LaM & IlD). For LiM and IlD methods a normalization technique to avoid size differences was used. Later, Principal Component Analysis and Discriminant Analysis (DA) were performed. For the LaM method Generalized Procrustes Analysis (GPA) followed by a Relative Warp Analysis and DA based on relative warps scores were performed. Meristic analysis revealed significant differences between species. Morphometry: eight groups were defined according to their body shape. IlD and LaM showed the highest classification rates (DA), with 96% and 83.8% of cross-validated grouped cases correctly classified, respectively.