Study on the meristic and morphometric variations on the some species belonging to Cyprinidae in the Tigris and Euphrates River system

The specimens of the follovving 4 species belonging to genus Capoeta and Garra. Capoeta trutta (Heckel, 1843), Capoeta umbla (Heckel, 1843), Garra rufa (Heckel, 1843) and Garra variabilis (Heckel, 1843) were collected from different localities in the Tigris and Euphrates River system between 2007 and 2008. The morphological and meristic characteristics were taken to determine variability of the intra species. Therefore 13 meristic and 26 morphometric variables were taken from each collected specimen and discriminant analysis was applied to data.It has been determined that there are significantly meristic and morphometric variation between specimens collected different localities in the Tigris and Euphrates River System.Consequently, the discriminant functions obtained were concluded to be more efficient than conventional methods for classifying these species, and discriminant analysis was demonstrated to be an efficient method in systematic studies.