International Journal of Marine Science, 2017, Vol.7, No.5, 37-50
37
Research Article Open Access
Stock Differentiation of Goldband Goatfish
Upeneus moluccensis
from the Red
Sea and the Mediterranean Sea Using Morphometric Analysis
Deepak G. Pazhayamadom
1
, Laith A. Jawad
2
, Mohamad Hassan
3
1 Department of Primary Industry and Fisheries, Northern Territory Government, Australia
2 Flat Bush, Manukau, Auckland, New Zealand
3 Department of Animal Production, Faculty of Agriculture, Tishreen University, Syria
Corresponding email
International Journal of Marine Science, 2017, Vol.7, No. 5 doi
Received: 27 Dec., 2016
Accepted: 7 Feb., 2017
Published: 25 Feb., 2017
Copyright © 2017
Pazhayamadom et al., This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits
unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Preferred citation for this article
:
Pazhayamadom D.G., Jawad L.A., and Hassan M., 2017, Stock differentiation of goldband goatfish
Upeneus moluccensis
from the Red Sea and the
Mediterranean Sea using morphometric analysis, International Journal of Marine Science, 7(5): 37-50 (doi
Abstract
The goldband goatfish Upeneus moluccensis is one of the several Lessepsian fish species that has migrated from Red Sea
(original habitat) through Suez Canal and settled in the Mediterranean Sea (new habitat). The differences in environment may affect
the phenotype of the fish species and thus the populations could evolve into distinct stocks unique to the habitats where they persist.
The goatfish is now a commercially important fish species in both habitats though no studies have so far compared the morphology
between these populations. Fish samples were collected from Hurghada (Egypt) and Latakia (Syria), one each from the Red Sea and
the Mediterranean Sea respectively. We measured 14 morphometric distances from each fish specimen and they were transformed
using an allometric approach to remove the effect of size from shape of the individual. The entire multivariate data was then
subjected to principal component analysis to determine the shape differences between these populations. Our study showed
significant differences in the body shape of the fish, mostly associated to their adaptations to swim and improve visibility at the
respective environments. This indicates that the goatfish populations in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea are two unique fish
stocks.
Keywords
Morphometry; Phenotypic plasticity; Goatfish; Caudal peduncle; Eye diameter
Introduction
The Levantine, Aegean, Ionian and Adriatic Seas belong to the region of eastern Mediterranean Sea and this area
is a remnant of the Tethys Ocean (Neev et al., 1985). The deep-water communication between the Mediterranean
and the Indian Ocean was opened during the early Miocene (Robba, 1987) and sporadic marine contacts
continued well into the Messinian period (Sonnenfeld, 1985) but the species of Indo-Pacific origin still inhabited
the Pliocene Mediterranean (Sorbini, 1988). This area is now open to the Red Sea and Indian Ocean through the
Suez Canal, which resulted in an ongoing ‘Lessepsian migration’ (the directional movement of marine organisms
from The Red Sea to The Mediterranean Sea through the Suez canal) of marine fish species.
The eastern Mediterranean Sea region has faced two dramatic changes through its hydrological lifetime, the
completion of the construction of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the fully operation of the Aswan High Dam in 1964
(Aleem, 1972; Golani, 1998). These constructions brought substantial changes in the marine ecosystem including
the biota of the eastern Mediterranean region. The two regions that the Suez Canal separate differ in their
temperature regimes where it is relatively stable in the Red Sea but with wider fluctuations in the Mediterranean
Sea. The biota of both seas is different belonging to discrete zoogeographical regions i.e., tropical Indo-Pacific for
the Red Sea and temperate Atlantic for the Mediterranean Sea (Golani, 1998).
The percentage of the fish Lessepsian migrants in the Mediterranean Sea is about 13.2% (Golani, 1996) but only a
few have established populations (Golani, 1998). One among these populations is the goatfish of family Mullidae.
Only two goatfish species have migrated and established in the new niches of the Mediterranean Sea (Goren and
Dor, 1994) i.e.,
Upeneus moluccensis
(Bleeker, 1855)
and
Upeneus pori
(Ben-Tuvia and Golani, 1989). The
golden-banded goatfish
U. moluccensis
is now a commercially important demersal fish species in the eastern
Mediterranean Sea. It lives in shoals mostly in sandy-muddy or muddy habitats at depth between 20-130m (Kaya
