ESTIMATION OF FLATHEAD GREY MULLET MUGIL CEPHALUS DIFFERENTIATION USING MULTIVARIATE ANALYSES FOR MORPHOMETRIC DATA

In the present study, one hundred and fifty flat-head grey mullet Mugil cephalus, specimens were randomly collected from Qarun, Manzala, and Burullus lakes in Egypt to investigate with a view to differentiate them based on principal components and discriminant analyses. The results from principal component analysis (PCA) showed that most of the phenotypic variation was found on the first three axes, which included more than 87.96%, for Mugil cephalus populations. The results of the DFA step-wise explained 100% of the variance with two functions only. Dorsal fin length (DFL), pectoral fin length (PecFL), maximum body height (MBH), caudal peduncle depth (CPD) and condition factor (CF) were the most important characteristics of distinction between populations. The present screening clearly differentiated the M. cephalus examined using a simply accessible, comparatively quick, and cheap morphometric analysis.