This study was conducted to discriminate five Scorpaena
species and populations of each species according to morphometric
characters. A total of 1865 fish specimens were collected from the eight
locations in the four Turkish seas: Antalya, Balıkesir, Çanakkale,
Hatay, İzmir, Marmara Ereğlisi, Ordu and Şile. In the study, 26
morphometric traits were measured for intra- and interspecific
discrimination of five Scorpaena species. The data were subjected
to analysis of variance, principal components analysis (PCA) and
canonical discriminant analysis. As results of the PCA, 10 traits for S. maderensis and S. scrofa, 12 traits for S. elongata and 13 traits for S. notata and S. porcus
were found to be important for intraspcific discrimination. The overall
classification scores of intraspecific discrimination were determined
as 94.6% for S. elongata, 90.5% for S. maderensis, 96.7% for S. notata, 96.5% for S. porcus and 92.2% for S. scrofa.
The PCA indicated that 13 morphometric measurements among the 26 traits
are important in the interspecific discrimination of five Scorpaena species. The cross-validated canonical discriminant analysis was correctly classified as 97.4% at the Scorpaena
species level. The discrimination of correctly classified species
ranged from 94.8% to 100%. Finally, we demonstrated that the
morphometric characters examined in the present study can be used
successfully in the intra- and interspecific discrimination of Scorpaena species from different habitats. |