Lagenar Otolith Morphometry of Gibel Carp, Carassius gibelio (Cyprinidae): Comparisons Among Four Populations in Samsun Province (Turkey)

Abstract

This study aims to investigate lagenar otolith (asteriscus) morphometry of gibel carp Carassius gibelio collected from Altinkaya Dam Lake, Bafra Fish Lakes, Lake Ladik, and Simenit Lake in Samsun Province, northern Anatolia. Five otolith shape indices (form factor, aspect ratio, circularity, roundness, and rectangularity) have been calculated from 288 right otoliths obtained from samples in four sampling sites. Principal component analysis, canonical discriminant analysis, and non-parametric PERMANOVA have been used to assess inter-population differences. The overall success of the canonical discriminant analysis in the separation of these four populations is found as 56.3%. The highest classification success is achieved for Lake Ladik with 81.7%.