All good things come in threes - species delimitation through shape analysis of saccular, lagenar and utricular otoliths

作者：Schulz Mirbach Tanja^*; Plath Martin

来源：Marine and Freshwater Research, 2012, 63(10): 934-940.

DOI：10.1071/MF12132

• inner ear
• Fast Fourier Tranform
• freshwater fishes
• Guppy
• Molly

Otoliths are calcium carbonate biomineralisates in the inner ear of teleost fishes. Otoliths of the saccule (sagittae) are known to show species-specific (or even population-specific) contour differences and, thus, are regularly used in fisheries management for stock identification. However, the other two otolith types from the utricle (lapilli) and lagena (asterisci) are typically neglected in studies of this kind, such that little information is available regarding potential species-specific contour differences. Using four species of livebearing fishes of the genus Poecilia (Cyprinodontiformes, Poeciliidae), we compared contour outlines of all three otolith types by applying Fourier shape analysis and tested for species delimitation success of the different otolith types alone, and all three otoliths combined. Our results indicated that also lapilli and especially asterisci convey species-specific information, and the classification success of discriminant function analyses was highest when combining shape information from all three otolith types. We propose that future studies on species delimitation or stock identification may benefit from considering all three otolith types together.

• 出版日期2012