Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• Ehsan Shatoei Gharenjeh ¹
• Soheil Eagderi ²
• Hadi poorbagher ²
• Manoochehr Nasri ³

¹ Department of Fisheries, Faculty of Natural Resources, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran

² Fisheries Department, Natural resources Faculty, University of Tehran, Karaj, Iran

³ Fisheries Department, Natural resources Faculty, Lorestan University, Khorramabad, Iran.

Abstract

This work aimed to investigate the morphological diversity of five species of P. syrman, P. gorlap, P. iranicus, P. patimari and P. hircaniaensis of the genus Ponticola (Gobiidae). For this purpose, the specimens of the studied species were sampled from different stations in the rivers of the southern basin of the Caspian Sea in the provinces of Guilan, Golestan and Mazandaran and a total of 20 morphometric characteristics were measured. Then, the morphological characteristics after standardization were compared by PCA, Kruskal-Wallis and CVA analyses. Based on the results, all characteristics showed significant differences. The studied species, except P. iranicus and P. hircaniaensis were completely discriminated from each other, and the most important discriminative characters were the height of the second dorsal-fin, preanal length, the length of the pectoral-fin, the length of the caudal peduncle, the pre dorsal length, ventral fin length and head length. The members of the genus Ponticola are similar in terms of morphological traits, hence, it is suggested to use the whole traditional morphometric characters in a PCA analysis and molecular data to discriminate the species in this genus.

Keywords

• Caspian Sea
• Gobiidae
• morphometrics
• morphological diversity
• Ponticola