Geometric morphometric comparison of Mesopotamian minnow (Barilius mesopotamicus Berg 1932) populations in Iran

The Mesopotamian minnow (Barilius mesopotamicus Berg, 1932) is a native cyprinid which is distributed in Tigris and Bushehr basins in Iran and it is important from genetic point of view, but there is little information about that. The present study compared the geometric morphometrics of the Mesopotamian minnow populations in Iran. For this purpose, 460 fish specimens from its distributaion range in Iran, namely, Diala, Bushehr, Karkheh, Karun and Jarrahi river basins were sampled. Pictures were taken from the left side of the specimens and digitized using 15 landmarks placed on two-dimensional images using Tpsdig2 software. The data after Procrast analysis were analyzed with PCA, CVA multivariate statistical methods and cluster analysis. Geometric morphometric comparisons showed no significant differences in the studied populations, although in PCA and CVA tests and classification of the population and patterns of the body shape along the axes, some differences were observed which were due to differences in head size and shape, body height and length of the caudal peduncle. Thus, It seems that the separation time among these populations is not long enoght to result in substantial differences among them or their habit conditions are basically similar, leading to similar body shapes in different populations