Intra- and interspecific discrimination of Scorpaena species from the Aegean, Black, Mediterranean and Marmara seas

Serdar Yedier,Derya Bostanci

doi:10.3989/scimar.05185.018

Abstract

This study was conducted to discriminate five Scorpaena species and populations of each species according to morphometric characters. A total of 1865 fish specimens were collected from the eight locations in the four Turkish seas: Antalya, Balıkesir, Çanakkale, Hatay, İzmir, Marmara Ereğlisi, Ordu and Şile. In the study, 26 morphometric traits were measured for intra- and interspecific discrimination of five Scorpaena species. The data were subjected to analysis of variance, principal components analysis (PCA) and canonical discriminant analysis. As results of the PCA, 10 traits for S. maderensis and S. scrofa, 12 traits for S. elongata and 13 traits for S. notata and S. porcus were found to be important for intraspcific discrimination. The overall classification scores of intraspecific discrimination were determined as 94.6% for S. elongata, 90.5% for S. maderensis, 96.7% for S. notata, 96.5% for S. porcus and 92.2% for S. scrofa. The PCA indicated that 13 morphometric measurements among the 26 traits are important in the interspecific discrimination of five Scorpaena species. The cross-validated canonical discriminant analysis was correctly classified as 97.4% at the Scorpaena species level. The discrimination of correctly classified species ranged from 94.8% to 100%. Finally, we demonstrated that the morphometric characters examined in the present study can be used successfully in the intra- and interspecific discrimination of Scorpaena species from different habitats.

Highlights

There are more than 32000 species of fish, accounting for over half of all vertebrate animals (Nelson et al 2016)
Morphometric analyses have been used for inter- and intraspecific identification/distinction of many freshwater and marine fish species. such as Rastrelliger kanagurta from peninsular India (Jayasankar et al 2004), Clarias gariepinus from Turkey (Turan et al 2005), Pomatomus saltatrix from the Aegean, Black, and Mediterranean seas (Turan et al 2006), the genus Puntius from Assam, India (Choudhury et al 2011), Catla catla from India (Ujjainia and Kohli 2011), rattail fish from New Zealand (Ibáñez and Jawad 2018), Barbonymus spp. from Aceh, Indonesia (Batubara et al 2018) and Macrognathus pancalus from Bangladesh (Mahfuj et al 2019a)
A total of 1865 fish individuals belonging to five species (S. elongata, S. notata, S. maderensis, S. porcus and S. scrofa) from the eight locations of the Aegean, Black, Mediterranean and Marmara seas were studied for morphometric analysis

Summary

Introduction

There are more than 32000 species of fish, accounting for over half of all vertebrate animals (Nelson et al 2016). They are dispersed over wide geographic areas, and the environmental conditions can affect traits such as reproduction, fertility and longevity (Rawat et al 2017). Identifying the intra- and interspecific differences/similarities of fish with variable life history characteristics is quite important for understanding population dynamics and evaluating sustainable harvests (Turan et al 2005, Cadrin et al 2014). Morphometric analyses have been used for inter- and intraspecific identification/distinction of many freshwater and marine fish species. such as Rastrelliger kanagurta from peninsular India (Jayasankar et al 2004), Clarias gariepinus from Turkey (Turan et al 2005), Pomatomus saltatrix from the Aegean, Black, and Mediterranean seas (Turan et al 2006), the genus Puntius from Assam, India (Choudhury et al 2011), Catla catla from India (Ujjainia and Kohli 2011), rattail fish from New Zealand (Ibáñez and Jawad 2018), Barbonymus spp. from Aceh, Indonesia (Batubara et al 2018) and Macrognathus pancalus from Bangladesh (Mahfuj et al 2019a)

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion