Advances in Environmental Biology

AENSI Journals Advances in Environmental Biology ISSN-1995-0756 EISSN-1998-1066 Journal home page: http://www.aensiweb.com/aeb/ Landmark-Based Geometric Morphometric Analysis on Bodyshape Variation of Mesopristes cancellatus (Cuvier, 1829) 1 Christina A. Barazona, 1 Demayo, C.G., 1 Mark Anthony J. Torres and 2 Gorospe, J.G. 1 Mindanao State University, Department of Biological Sciences, Iligan City, Philippines. 2 Mindanao State University, School of Graduate Studies, Naawan Misamis Oriental, Philippines. A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 23 June 2015 Accepted 25 July 2015 Available online 30 August 2015 Keywords: Phenotype, protrandry, geometric morphometric analysis. A B S T R A C T Sexual dimorphism and morphology are inevitable key for a sucessful fish culture of the protandic fish Mesopristescancellatus. With the use of geometric and morphometric tools, phenotypic relationship between male and female sexes were identified to describe evident variation in the overall body shapes. Relative warp analysis of procrustes-fited coordinates show variations between sexes was oberved to be within the range of the mean shapes. A total of 68.79% explained variance from warp analysis is associated with the body depths and the length of the abdomen, the position of the eye and the distance of the eye to the pectoral fins. Major shifts of the shape transformation are projected longitudinally with relative constrictions towards the anterior portion of the body. The morphometric references shows a linear relationship and direct proportionality ralated to the length of samples. Generally males have highlyfit shapes while females greatly vary and particularly observed in the abdominal area which may explain the results of the discriminant analysis that revealed 85.54% correct classification. This study has shown the importance of the tools of geometric morphometrics specifically relative warp analysis in describing quanitatively and understanding the nature of variation in the shape of the fish body. 2015 AENSI Publisher All rights reserved. To Cite This Article: Christina A. Barazona, Demayo, C.G., Mark Anthony J. Torres and Gorospe, J.G., Landmark-Based Geometric Morphometric Analysis on Bodyshape Variation of Mesopristes cancellatus (Cuvier, 1829). Adv. Environ. Biol., 9(19), 32-36, 2015 INTRODUCTION Morphology can be one of the most critical factors affecting the performance of an individual [1].Structural features of animals provide insights on their survival behaviors [2]and are often associated with behavioral tactics of territoriality, courtship, and cuckoldry [3, 16]. Studies shows that body structures in numbers of animals are ahighly plastic, size assortive mate choice have been widely observed among invertebrates and vertebrates including fishes [4,5,]. Variation of body shapes can be a reflection of ecological and behavioral differences and can be expected to be evolutionary relevant [6]it is also related to growth rate and timing of sexual maturity [7]. Among the morphological structure and references body shape and size are easy to assess visually relating to the habitat and mate choice as exhibited by a number of fishes, an example of this is Ruanho species which has very distinguishable body shape during breeding season [16]. Phenotypic relationship between individuals can be a vital knowledge in developing techniques of rearing and culturing of any oragnism. In this study raditional morphometry and geometric morphometric analysis was utilized to visualize the mathematical patterns and morphological variation between male and female of Mesopristes cancellatus. A protandous hermaphrodite, M. cancellatus, taperoid grunter also locally known as Pigek and Bulidao are generally distributed in Sumatra eastward, Indonesia, New Guinea, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Taiwan Province of China and Philippines [18,8].They are considered one of the most high valued fishes in the Philippines and are now in a danger for extinction due to unregulated harvesting [9,8].Geometric morphometric is a helpful technique to discriminate tendencies in shape changes of M.cancellatus samples for a practical application in culturing and preservation. The breakthrough of geometric and morphometric approach is that the mathematical patterns of the organisms body is integrated throughout that analysis unlike the traditional way of reducing patterns into number only [10,11]. Corresponding Author: Christina A. Barazona, Department of Biological Sciences, CSM, Mindanao State University, ILigan. E-mail: cabarazona@gmail.com

33 Christina A. Barazona et al, 2015 MATERIALS AND METHODS Samples of M. cancellatus were obatined from Tagoloan River Misamis Oriental October- April 2012. Tagoloan River is geographically located in Tagoloan Misamis Oriental, Northern Mindanao Philippines. It has a 6 meter (20ft) elevation from the source and approximately 8 0 33 North and 124 0 45 East. Fig. 1: Map of the approximate sampling location M. cancellatus catch largely in brackishial intersections of Tagoloan River, Misamis Oriental. Fig. 2: Photograph of a female M. cancellatus and landmark configurations used in this study. 1. Snout. 2. Upper part of the posterior head. 3. Dorsal fin origin.4.origin of the soft dorsal rays. 5. Dorsal fin end. 6. Caudal peduncle end. 7. Caudal peduncle base.8. ventral caudal end. 9. Anal fin end. 10. Anal fin origin.11. Ventral fin origin. 12-13 pectoral fin 14-18 contour of the gill cover 19 center of the eye. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS After ocular sexing 38 males and 65 females were obtained for the analysis. Photography was done prior to fixation with Canon Power Shots A2200 HD in fine setting with a metric ruler for reference. Soft copies were saved for the analysis. Traditional morphometric was done with the use of Microsoft Image Tool version 2.01. Landmark points were set for each individual- both male and female of M. cancellatus. Fourteen landmark (Figure 2) points were constructed based on the general diagnostic characteristics of fishes [12, 13]. Landmark data were used to calculate speciemen size and description and regressions of shapes. Shape were summarized and and represented using principal warp analysis [10].Shape score were tested in canonical variate anylysis and discriminant Hotelling to determine shape variations between male and female of M. Cancellatus. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS Traditional morphometric measurement reference (Table 1) shows that generally females are larger than males. Smaller males is said to be more agile thus they exhibit increase in mating success [14].Several studies shows that males adjust based on female s body size during courtship [16] this variation of the body size can also be accounted to the growth rate of the organism, that shape and size of an individual is relative to its growth [14]. Standard length of the male samples reaches to 184.63 and female with 164.5, this shows that the critical length of the samples ranges between 184.63 and 164.5 which can be a key for noting sex identification and sex shifting. Morphological references has a direct proportional relationship with reference to the standard length such as that when there is the increase of length, majority of other morphological structure also follow. However, eye diameter versus the standard length does not show pattern.

34 Christina A. Barazona et al, 2015 Table 1: Traditional morphometric measurement (in mm) references. Morphometric reference (MR) Length summary Male Female 1. SPH (Snout to upper part of the posterior head ) 32.82-45.4 40.68-57.17 2. PHPB (posterior head pectoral fin base) 27.15-43.49 34.48-44.74 3. SPB (snout pectoral fin base) 36.36-52.22 44.49-61.33 4. ED (eye diameter) 10.67-14.4 8.87-13.61 5. PHDB (posterior head anterior dorsal fin base 19.11-25.68 28.58-27.63 6. DBVB (anterior dorsal fin base ventral fin base) 47.71-71.62 69.97-74.42 7. PBVB (pectoral fin base ventral fin base) 19.95-56.23 31.33-28.16 8. PHVB (upper part of posterior head ventral fin base) 45.36-66.97 63.96-71.77 9. VBAB (ventral fin base anterior anal fin base) 39.06-60.26 67.24-57.06 10. PDAB (posterior dorsal fin base anterior anal fin base) 45.96-61.77 50.84-66.47 11. DBL (dorsal fin base length) 81.13-114.35 104.65-122.17 12. ADAA (anterior dorsal fin base anterior anal fin base) 64.93-96.26 95.11-99.66 13. ABL (anal fin base) 33.94-46.83 39.89-44.61 14. PDPA (posterior dorsal fin base posterior anal fin base) 17.9-24.7 20.9-24.6 15. CPL (caudal peduncle length) 10.5-16.84 12.19-16.11 16. CPD (caudal peduncle depth) 15.32-23.17 20.3-22.36 17. PDUCP (posterior dorsal fin base upper caudal peduncle) 6.81-11.95 14.59-5.89 18. PDLCP (posterior dorsal fin base lower caudal peduncle 17.78-11.95 24.43-24.51 19. SL (standard length) 128.72-184.63 164.5-190.57 Warp analysis of the landmark points constructed results to 74.07% explained variance can be visualized in Figure 3, all variations observed falls on the range of the mean shapes. The first relative warp with 31.58% which variations is largely associated with shifts on the body depths of the fish body, the length of the abdomen, inclination of the pelvic fin position and the position of the eye, both male and female shares the same characteristics. Fig. 3: Summary of landmark based geometric morphometric analysis showing mean shape and variations of body shapes explained by the relative warps of male (M) and female (F) M. cancellatus. Table 2: Summary of variants of the realtive warp analysis from both sexes of M. Cancellatus. Relative Explained Female Male warp variance (%) RW 1 23.89 Variation in the body depths, narrow to braoad headshape, changes in the position of the eye, enlargement of the abdomen, constriction of the upper caudal section. Changes on the head shape, changes of the position of the eye, changes in the distance og the gill cover to the snout.

35 Christina A. Barazona et al, 2015 RW 2 16.5 Midlateral constrictios, changes of the length of the upper head, changes on the length of the dorsal fins, and dorsally oriented cnstricion of the caudal peduncle. RW 3 10.07 Ventrally oriented constriction of the snout which is relative to the body depths, changes in the length of the sofrays to the caudal peduncle. RW 4 6.84 Changes in the position of the gill cover relative to the head shape, changes of the, wide caudal peduncle width broader body depths. RW 5 6.16 Changes of the caudal width relative to the changes of the length and the constrictions of the lower caudal. With wider body depth the head is ventrally directed and otherwise for narrower body depth. Changes of the length and position of the gill cover along with the changes in head shape and the body depth. Pointed snout with narrow head, longer dorsal fin length with constriction of the upper caudal. Broader caudal length and width with narrower body depth, longer length of the lower caudal length with the increase of the body width. RW2 with 19.60% explained variance are exhibits differences on shifts of the overall shape of the head which is relative to its snout and the position of the eyes. As the depth of the upper head landmark point 2 and 11 decreases the snout becomes more pointed and angle of the snout- upper head- ventral fin deacreases. Females are characterized with variations on the negative extreme and male samples are equally distributed. RW3 with 9.47% variability is characterized by the shifts on the snout and the caudal portion. As the snout becomes less pointed the caudal portion becomes constricted towards the posterior-dorsal part of the body and otherwise happens towards negative extreme. Females exhibits greater variation towards positive exremes. Fig. 4: A. Landmark plots showing the overlap of shapes of M. cancellatus. B. Discrimant- Hotelling s test showing minimal overlap between sexes with 85.44% correctly classified group. C. CVA plots of the relative scores D. Boxplots of all the PCs of male and female warp scores showing variation which is mainly concentrated in the mean. RW4 with 6.87% variance account to the changes of the length of the dorsal fins. The trend of shifts shows that as the dorsal fins increases its length, the length between the dorsal fin end and the caudal peduncle origin decreases. The histograms shows a wide distribution which means that it is true to both male and female samples. RW5 with 6.56% of variability accounts to the shifts of the caudal peduncle length. The lower caudal length increases as the dorsal fin length decreases.

36 Christina A. Barazona et al, 2015 Landmark plots shown on Figure 5A exhibits overlaps of the shapes from both sexes which differed mainly on the abdominal area and minimal variation on the tail. Male shows conserved body shapes which is exhibited with the fitness of the landmark plots while that of the female shows greater variation. The overlap and spread of the Discriminant-Hotelling s test might have been the poor classification of the samples pertaining to sexes and that hermaphrodites shares very close sexual characteristics.with other perciformes, like Tropheus cichlid lineages, they exhibit distinguishable morphological characteristics with minor variation due a tightly packed community with limited capacity of dispersal [15] and this phenimenon might be the cause of the minimal variation between male and female of M. cancellatus. Conclusions: With traditional morphometry and warp analysis of landmarks, the phenotypic relationship between male and female of M. cancellatus has been visualized. The results shows that there is significant variation among the set diagnostic characteristics set for each individual, that must have been accounted to the growth rate. Males have specific shape and as well as females while they have a points of shape overlap, the trend of shape shifts can be seen with the transformation grid. The study proves that there is a dimorphic patterns that can be morphologically and geometrically of M. cancellatus. This transformation pattern can be helpful to both in rearing and culturing and any other developmental aspects of the said species. REFERENCES [1] Schoenfuss, HL., RW. Blob, 2007. The importance of functional morphology for fishery conservation and management: applications to Hawaiian amphidromous fishes. Bishop Mus Bull Cult Environ Stud, 3: 125 41. [2] Smith, T.B. and S. Skulaso, 1996. Evolutionary significance of resource polymorphism in fishes, amphibians, and birds. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst., 27: 111 3. [3] Lee, J.S. and A. Bass, 2006. Dimorphic male midshipman fish: reduced sexual selection or sexual selection for reduced characters?. Behavioral Ecology, 17(4): 670-675. [4] Nagel, 1995. Natural selection and parallel speciation. The American Naturalist, 146: 292 301. [5] McKinnon, J.S., N. Hamele, N. Frey, J. Chou, A. McAleavey, J. Greene and W. Paulson, 2012. Male choice in the stream-anadromous stickleback complex. PLOS One 7: e37951. [6] Klingerberg, C.P., 2003. Body shape variation in cichlid fishes of the Amphilophus citrinellus species complex. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 80: 397-408. [7] Nordeng, H., 1983. Solution to the `charr problem' based on Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) in Norway. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci., 40: 1372-1387. [8] Maralit, B.A., 2012. Species and endemicity status of the therapontid Pigek, Mesopristes cancellatus (Cuvier, 1829) in the Philippines. Philippine Science Letter, 5(1). [9] Fresco, MCO., 2011. Are you familiar with pigek? BAR chronicle 2002. [10] http://www.bar.gov.ph/barchronicle/2002/jun02_16-30_pigek.asp). [11] Bookstein, FL., 1991. Morphometric tools for landmark data. Geometry and Biology. Cambridge University Press, New York. [12] Stone, J.R., 1998. Landmark-Based Thin-Plate Spline Relative Warp Analysis of Gastropod Shells. Syst. Biol., 47(2): 254-263. [13] Haryono, 2005. Morphological Comparison among Striped Puntius (Pisces: Cyprinidae) from Indonesia. Biodiversitas, 6(1): 55-58. [14] Hockaday, S., L.G. Ross, T.A. Beddow, 2000. A comparison of models built to estimate the mass of different strains of Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L, using morphometric techniques. Aquaculture (in press). [15] Blanckenhorn, WU., 2000. The evolution of body size: what keeps and organism small? Q Rev Biol, 75: 385-407. [16] Sturmbauer, C. and A. Meyer, 1992. Genetic Divergence, Speciation and Morphological Stasis in a lineage of African Cichlid Fishes. Nature, 358: 578-581. [17] Gross, M.R., 1996. Alternative reproductive strategies and tactics: Diversity within sexes. Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 11: 92 98. [18] Sturmbauer, C. and A. Meyer, 1992. Genetic Divergence, Speciation and Morphological Stasis in a lineage of African Cichlid Fishes. Letters to Nature vol. 358. [19] Suminguit, V.J. and E. Burton, 2008. A Study on Ancestral Domain Recognition and Management Within and Around the Mt. Kitanglad Range National Park" ICRAF Southeast Asia.