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Abstract

The present study employed geometric morphometric analysis to investigate morphological variation of a cyprinid fish Schizocypris altidorsalis from the Hamun–Hirmand aquatic system in the Sistan Basin, southeastern Iran. A total of 55 specimens (26 from the Chahnimeh reservoirs and 29 from the Hamun wetland) were collected using hand and cast nets. Sixteen homologous landmarks were digitized from two-dimensional images of each specimen using TPSDig2 software. Shape variation was analyzed using Generalized Procrustes Analysis (GPA), followed by Principal Component Analysis (PCA), Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA), and Hotelling’s T² test. The DFA revealed significant morphological differentiation between the two populations. Wireframe deformation analysis based on the consensus configuration indicated that the primary differences were associated with body depth and caudal peduncle length. These findings suggest that S. altidorsalis exhibits habitat-associated morphological plasticity, likely reflecting phenotypic responses to contrasting environmental conditions within the Hamun–Hirmand aquatic system.


 

Keywords

Cypriniformes Phenotypic plasticity Freshwater Fishes Discriminant Function Analysis

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The authors transfer the copyrights of their papers to the Iranian Society of Ichthyology. However, the information could be used in accordance with the Creative Commons licence (Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

How to Cite
GANJALI, Z. (2026). Application of geometric morphometrics to characterize morphological variation in <i>Schizocypris altidorsalis</i (Actinopterygii: Cyprinidae) from the Hamun–Hirmand aquatic system, Southeastern Iran. Iranian Journal of Ichthyology, 13(1), 13–22. https://doi.org/10.22034/iji.v13i1.1145
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