Comparative biometry of the Urmia bleak populations, Alburnus atropatenae

Urmia bleak (Alburnus atropatenae) is endemic to rivers of the Lake Urmia basin. In this research 274 specimens of this fish from seven rivers of Lake Urmia basin including Aaghdarreh, Nazloochai, Barandooz, Sarough, Zarrinehrud, Senteh and Talkhehrud were studied. In order to study the biometry, 17 traditional morphometric and 17 meristic traits and the method of morphemetric geometric were used. For statistical analises, the nonparametric test, the analysis of variance and the discriminate function analysis were applied. The results from the analysis of Kruskal Wallis showed significant differences among the 17 morphometric traits, (p<0.05), indicating high variations among the studied populations. In analyzes of PCA for morphometrics, six principal components with an eigenvalue of more than 1 was selected and these trait accounted for 84.16% of the variations. Plotting factors 1 and 2 of the PCA for traditional morphometric traits showed that Talkhehrud River population, to some extent, has been separated from other populations. In the analysis of meristic traits, six principal components with eigenvalue of more than 1 were selected and they accounted for 59.49% of the variations. Also plotting factors 1 and 2 for the meristic traits showed that Aaghdarreh River and Nazloochai River populations were overlapped, but were separated from other populations. Also, Talkhehrud population was, to some extent, separated from Zarrinehrud population, and was completely separated from Saroogh population.