Comparative study of otolith and sulcus morphology for stock discrimination of yellow drum along the Chinese coast

Abstract

Otolith morphology is widely used for fish stock identification. The sulcus, a structure on the medial side of the otolith, is an important feature in morphological analysis. This study was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of using sulcus morphology for stock identification and to compare its performance with commonly used otolith morphology analysis. Otoliths were collected and analyzed from three geographical groups (the Huanghe (Yellow) River estuary, HHE; the Jiaozhou Bay, JZB; and the Changjiang (Yangtze) River estuary, CJE) of yellow drum Nibea albiflora. The results show that the analysis of sulcus morphology based on shape indices (SIs), elliptic Fourier coefficients (EFc), and a combination of the two parameters identified stocks at overall classification rates of 51.0%, 72.5%, and 73.2%, respectively. These classification rates are similar to those obtained using otolith morphology analysis (57.0%, 73.8%, and 76.5% by SIs, EFc, and their combination, respectively). The findings suggest that sulcus morphology is comparable to the commonly used otolith morphology for identifying stocks of sciaenids, such as the yellow drum. For both otolith and sulcus morphology, EFc could identify the stocks more efficiently than SIs, while the combination of SIs and EFc was even better.