The morphometric and meristic variability of populations of sole pole (pegusa lascaris) of the Atlantic Central zone of Morocco

This biometric study was made on four Moroccan populations of sand sole obtained from the main fishing ports of the Atlantic central area (Safi, Essaouira, Agadir and Ifni). A total of 252 individuals were taken from commercial captures. Seven meristics characters were counted and fourteen morphometrics parameters were measured to reveal possible geographical variations of this species. The test of Kruskal-Wallis shows a significant difference at 5 % for the four meristics values in whole sites. The morphometric treatment of variables by PCA shows a strong percentage of variance expressed by the first of three components. All the variables are correlated to the first main component, except the pre-orbital distance (LPO) and the pre-dorsal distance (LPD). The ascending linear discriminating analysis, confirms 90 % of classification of the individuals of the four stations, 9 of 14 characters morphometrics analyzed are discriminating. The morphometrics result in our Study area presents geographical variations of the population of sole pole.