comparative study of morphological characteristics of tuini fish (capoeta damascina) in inland water of iran using geometic morphometric method

quantifying morphological characteristics of body shape in fishes can help their correct identification as well as understanding of evolutionary history of their different populations. hence, this study was aimed to compare the morphological characteristics of different population of tuini fish (capoeta damascina) in inland-water of iran using geometic morphometrics method (gm). in total 373 specimens of tuini were collected from thirteen rivers of tigris, kerman, jazmoorian, golf, hormoz, isfahan and namak lake basins. then, the lateral surface of their left side photographed and seventeen landmark-points defined and digitized using tpsdig2 software to extract body shape data in (gm). the coordinate data after gpa superimposing, analyzed using pca, cva and cluster analysis. the body shape pattern of every population was visualized in relation to consensus shape of total populations. the results revealed a significant difference in the body shape of studied populations (p