Study on population diversity of Freshwater Crayfish(Astacus leptodactylus) from Aras dam reservoir using morphometric properties

Aras Dam reservoir is a habitat for endemic crayfish which has economically high value among aquatics. The lake behind the dam is one of the important sources of fisheries in the field of aquaculture. Ecological diversity of different areas of the lake has caused several populations of crayfish that live in different parts of the Lake. These ecological divisions may cause phenotypic differentiation among populations. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the morphological and morphomeristic features among different populations in 3 different stations in the lake. For this purpose, 72 samples were taken from 3 Stations, and then 27 morphological and 6 morphomeristic factors were examined in the laboratory. The results of this study showed this crustacean population has a certain morphological differences. According to Canonical Discriminat Function Analyses (DA) some of these traits like ABH, CFL-R, CLL-R, CLW-R, CPW, HEW, TEW and α angle are more influenced by ecological circumstance of area.