Morphological variation of longspine scraper (Paracapoeta trutta) in sub-basins of Sirwan using geometric morphometric method

This work was conducted to study the morphological variation of longspine scraper (Paracapoeta trutta) in five populations in the Iranina sub-basins of Sirwan, including Gavehrood, Uraman, Ebrahim-Abad, Gaveshan and Qaleh-Ji. 58 specimens were sampled from the mentioned stations, which are the distribution places of the studied populations in Sirwan basin. In order to investigate morphological diversity, The coordinate data after GPA superimposing, analyzed using principal component analysis (PCA), canonical variate analysis (CVA) based on P value in Non-Parametric Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) and cluster analysis (CA). The results of Canonical Variate Analysis (CVA) showed that Uraman population is separated from others. Based on the results of Mahalanobis distances between the studied populations, the maximum and minimum distances were between Uraman and Ebrahim-Abad populations and Gaveshan and Gavehrood populations, respectively. Based on the Cluster analysis, the populations of Ebrahim-Abad, Qaleh-Ji and Gavehrood were clustered together and Gaveshan and Uraman in another one. The results also showed the phenotypic plasticity of this species in adapting to different habitats, based on habitat conditions.