Morphological Variations of Kura Barbel (Barbus Lacerta Heckel, 1843) from the Tigris River Basin using the Geometric Morphometric Method

The present study was conducted to investigate the morphological variations in different populations of Barbus lacerta from the Iranian part of the Tigris River drainage using the geometric morphometric method. For this purpose, a total of 133 specimens were collected from the Leileh, Bid-Sorkh, Golein, Sepid-barg, Dinavar, Kelash-bakhan, and Roudbar rivers. In the Lab, the left side of the specimens was photographed and on their 2D images, 12 landmark-points were defined and digitized using tpsDig2 software. After conducting generalized procrustes analysis, the extracted data were analyzed using multivariate statistical methods, including PCA and cluster analysis (CA). The results showed significant differences in the body shape of the studied populations except the Kelash-bakhan and Dinavar (p < 0.05). The observed differences indicated that the morphological variations are due to their phenotypic plasticity to environmental conditions, the evolution of the body shape, and the geographical distance in the Iranian part of the Tigris basin. Therefore, each population of this species should be considered as a separate stock.