Morphometric and Meristic Characteristics Studies of Loach, Paracobitis malapterurus (Valenciennes,1846) in the Zarrin-Gol River, East of the Elburz Mountains (Northern Iran)

3 Abstract: This study was conducted to determine morphometric and meristic characteristics of Loach, Paracobitis malapterurus, in Zarrin-Gol River in northern Iran. Sampling was done throughout one year from April 2010 to March 2011 using electrofishing (DC at 200-300 V., 50 Hertz frequencies and one anode). Univariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) and principal component analysis were conducted and the ANOVA revealed significant differences in 27 morphometric and 9 meristic factors (P<0.05). Morphometric characteristics were standardized before analysis for alleviating the errors due to algometric growth. According to the result, the average Coefficient of variation (%CV) of morphometric and meristic characteristics for male were 19.89% and4.42% respectively and for females were 19.64 % and 3.26% respectively. According to morphometric characteristics, four accounted for about 88.35% of characteristic diversity and in the case of morphometric characters, four factors accounted for 69.85% of characteristic diversity within genus were separated. Also, there was observed meaningful difference in 27 morphometric character and 5 meristic character between male and female (P<0.05). According to the result of Principal Components Analysis (PCA), distinctions between genres were observed and male and female had low overlapping.