A comparative study on morphometric characters of five Spirlin species (Cyprinidae: Alburnus) in Iranian inland waters using a truss network system

In this study morphometric comparison among five species of the genus Alburnus, namely Alburnus chalcoides, A. filippii, A. atropatenae, A. mossulensis andA. hohenackeri were examined using a truss network. Samples were taken from the Babol-rud, Baleqlu-Chai, Miriseh, Gamasiyab and Mahabad-Chai rivers in Iran during May 2010 to October 2012 by electrofishing. A hundred five truss distances between 15 landmarks in 300 specimens were measured. The ANOVA revealed significant differences in all the 105 morphometric factors (P<0/05). Principal component analysis (PCA) for morphometric data showed that 14 factors of the first morphometric characters among the 105 factors established had 96.33% changes in 5 species studied. Plotting the first and the second canonical discrimination analysis showed that A. atropatenae, A. filippii and A. mossulensis were high overlapping with each other, and A. hohenackeri andA. chalcoides were through separated from the others. The dendrogram derived from cluster analysis of Euclidean square distances among groups of centroids showed that the five species of the genus Alburnus were partly distinct from each other with respect to morphometric characters.