Geometric morphometric comparison of Barilius mesopotamicus (Berg 1932) populations in Bushehr basin

The study of fishes in aquatic ecosystems is important in many ways, including ecology, ethology, conservation and management of water resources, reserves and aquaculture, so the present study compared the geometric morphometrics of Barilius mesopotamicus populations in Bushehr basin. For this purpose, 140 fish specimens were sampled from Ahram, Zohreh, Kheirabad, Karzin, Shahpur and Darolmizan rivers. Specimens were transported to the laboratory after anesthetizing in 1% clove oil solution and fixing in 10% formalin. Pictures were taken from the left side of the specimens under similar condition 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 by CVA and cluster analyses showed significant differences in the studied populations and only Aharm and Karzin populations were were overlapping. Differences among the populations were due to differences in the body shape head size and shape and body height.