A survey on morphometric and meristic characteristics of Squalius cephalus(Linnaeus, 1758) population of Tajan river in Mazandaran Province

In this study, during a sampling period from summer 2011 to spring 2012, a total number of 167 samples of Squalius cephalus were gathered, from which 86 ones were taken from Shahid Rajai Dam Lake and 81 from Tajan River (downside of the dam). In this study 27 features of morphometric and 9 features of meristic characteristics were analyzed. The obtained data was analyzed and tested using SPSS 16 with T-test and PCA. Based on the obtained results, the main CV of morphometric and meristic characteristic of Squalius cephalus in the Shahid Rajai Dam Lake were 34.82 and 7.33 percent and Tajan River (down the dam) were 20.48 and 6.26 percent, respectively. The morphometric characteristics before analysis were standardized to reduce mistake resulting from alometric growth. About the morphometric characteristics, 10 factors that showed 81.37 percent variety of characteristics and about the meristic characteristics 4 factors that showed 66.84 percent of characteristic varieties were taken between these two stations. Also the Squalius cephalus of these two stations had significant difference in five characteristics (p≤0.05). In the obtained results, by using the method of breaking in to major parameters (PCA), there was a rather low level of overlapping. Yet no population separation witnessed.