Sexual dimorphism of Rutilus ‎kutum Kamenskii, 1901 using ‎geometric morphometric method ‎in part of the southwestern‏ ‏Caspian Sea basin

This study was conducted to study sexual dimorphism of Caspian kutum, Rutilus kutum collected from the Rudsar coast and Anzali Wetland, Guilan Province. After collecting, the left lateral face of the fresh specimens were photographed, then 13 Landmark-points were defined and digitized using tpsDig2 software. Generalized procrustes analysis was performed to eliminate non-shape effects, including size, direction and position. Then date was analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA) and discriminant function analysis (DFA) based on P-value obtained from Hoteling’s t-test. The results showed a significant difference in the body shape of the male and female (P<0.05). The observed differences confirm the presence of the sexual dimorphism in the study species during reproductive season. The observed morphological can be shown presence of the sexual dimorphism in this species. Based on the findings, the females have deeper body and smaller head, which can related to reproductive performance of each sex.