Morphological Divergence Species Lutjanus Bloch, 1790(Perciformes: Lutjanidae) Oman Sea..

The Lutjanus genus is a group of fishes with high economic and ecological value in the Oman Sea, whose species show great morphological similarity. This study aimed to compare the morphological variation of 11 species of Lutjanus genus with traditional morphometric and geometric morphometric approaches. Based on the studies conducted, 11 species of the genus Lutjanus including L. lutjanus, L. argentimaculatus, L. ehrenbergii, L. erythropterus, L. fulviflamma, L. johnii, L. lemniscatus, L. malabaricus, L. rivulatus, L. russellii, L. quinquelineatus were identified. Traditional and geometric morphometric approaches were able to distinguish most of the species of this genus from each other in counting, measuring and body shape traits respectively. Univariate and multivariate analyzes showed a relatively high agreement, so that the number of dorsal fin spines, the number of gill spines, the length of the front ventral fin, the body depth, the length of the caudal peduncle and the length of the head had the greatest role in the separation of the members of this genus. According to our results, species diversity was higher in the eastern stations of the Oman Sea (Tis and Brice) than in the western one, which could be due to ecological factors and habitat conditions. This study suggests the use of molecular analyzes to confirm the identified species and design a detailed conservation plan.