Morphological variations of Alburnus mossulensis Heckel, 1843 populations in the Tigris tributaries of the Persian Gulf basin in Iran (Teleostei: Cyprinidae)

The genus Alburnus (Cyprinidae) is distributed in Europe and northern southwest Asia with about 38 species among which seven species are present in Iran. In this study 229 specimens of Alburnus mossulensis were collected from eight rivers of Tigris sub basin which drain into the Persian Gulf, and were fixed in %10 formalin for further investigation. Eighteen morphometric and 12 meristic characters of the each specimen and their weight were measured. Morphometric characters in ratio method and meristic characters in classification method were used for population comparison. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed significant differences (P