Temperature-Induced Phenotypic Plasticity in Aphanius arakensis Teimori, Esmaeili, Gholami, Zarei, & Reichenbacher, 2012 (Teleostei: Aphaniidae)

Özet

Öz This study was conducted to examine the effects of different thermal conditions on the body shape of Aphanius arakensis, aeurythermal species in Iranian inland waters. The specimens were collected from Eshtehard Shoor River, Iran, transferred tothe laboratory, and exposed to 22ÅãC, 25ÅãC, and 28ÅãC for 2 months. After this period, the specimens were photographed andlandmark points were digitized on the 2D pictures. The extracted coordinates of the landmark points were superimposedusing the generalized procrustes analysis to remove the effects of size, rotation, and translation. Canonical variate analysis andMahalanobis distance followed by permutation multivariate analysis of variance were used to discriminate the shapes of thespecimens exposed to the three temperatures. The results indicated that the shape of A. arakensis was significantly affectedby temperature in both males and females. The specimens exposed to 25ÅãC and 28ÅãC had similar shapes but dissimilar shapescompared to those exposed to 22ÅãC. Those exposed to 22ÅãC had shorter head and tail regions and upper position of eyes. Males and females showed similar changes to temperature variations.