All good things come in threes – species delimitation through shape analysis of saccular, lagenar and utricular otoliths
Tanja Schulz-Mirbach A C and Martin Plath B
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A University of Vienna, Department of Behavioural Biology, Althanstrasse 14, A-1090 Vienna, Austria.
B J.W. Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, Evolutionary Ecology Group, Max-von-Laue Strasse 13, 60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
C Corresponding author. Email: tanja.schulz-mirbach@univie.ac.at
Marine and Freshwater Research 63(10) 934-940 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF12132
Submitted: 15 May 2012 Accepted: 17 August 2012 Published: 24 October 2012
Abstract
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.
Additional keywords : inner ear, Fast Fourier Tranform, freshwater fishes, Guppy, Molly.
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