Truss network based morphometric and meristic variations among south-western populations of Macrognathus aculeatus in Bangladesh

Abstract

Landmark-based truss network system was applied to examine the morphometric and meristic differences among four different populaces of Macrognathus aculeatus namely; Dhakuriabeel, Jashore (DBJ); Arial Kha River, Madaripur (AKRM); Nabaganga River, Jhenaidah (NRJ); Kopotakkha River, Jashore (KRJ) in Bangladesh. Completely 80 samples of M. aculeatus were collected (20 individuals from each population) for this study. Six meristic characters, 6 morphometric characters and 15 truss-based morphometric characters were measured for one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey-HSD post hoc test. Discriminant function analyses were also performed by using morphometric and truss-based morphometric characters to detect potential characters responsible for population separation. ANOVAresults revealed significant differences among three meristic characters, 6 morphometric and 10 truss-based morphometric characters. By using both morphometric and truss dimensions, the first discriminant function analysis (DFA) resulted for 46.3%, the second DF resulted for 36.6% and the third DF resulted for 17.1% among-group variability. The populations were clearly aggregated among four populations in the discriminant space. Considering the morphometric and truss measurements, 100%, 94.4%, 91.7% and 84.2% of unique grouped cases were appropriately classified in KRJ, AKRM, DBJ and NRJ, respectively. In Euclidian dendrogram, where first cluster formed by AKRM and second cluster formed by two populations DBJ and NRJ and finally KRJ formed another sub cluster with DBJ. The baseline information derived from the present study would be useful for appropriate conservation of M. aculeatus populations as well as for the researchers for further investigation.