The population structure of Caspian Vimba, Vimba persa in Southern Caspian Sea using truss morphometric and meristic characters

In the present study, the population structure of 128 specimens of Vimba persa was investigated from Talesh, Anzali, Kiashahr, Langroud and Chalus shores in Caspian Sea, accompanied with Tonekabon river using the morphometric and meristic characters. Altogether, 24 morphometric features including 20 truss distances as well as eye diameter, interorbital width, snout length and cheek length and also 10 meristic counts were measured on each individual. Our results revealed significant differences with varying degrees between the means of the samples for 18 standardized morphometric measurements and 5 meristic counts (P<0.05) that showed high significant differences between the studied vimba samples. In discriminant analysis, the average of correct assignment of individuals into their original samples for morphometric and meristic characters was 76.6% and 50.8% respectively. Plotting discriminant functions 1 and 2 for morphometric measurements revealed a high discrimination between the samples of Anzali shore compare to other areas. In this regard, the samples of Langroud shore had a close morphometric similarity to Western Mazandaran (Chalus shore and Tonekabon river) while, the samples of Western Mazandaran were tightly close to each other. For the meristic characters, the amount of discrimination was low and the samples showed a high overlap revealing the less efficiency of meristic characters in separating the populations compare to morphometric features.