Sexual dimorphism in Artemia urmiana in four different geographical stations from the Urmia Lake ,West Azerbaijan Province, Iran

Alireza Asem¹, Nasrullah Rastegar-Pouyani¹, Naser Agh²

1. Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Razi University, Kermanshah, IRAN
2. Artemia and Aquatic Animals Research Center, Urmia University, Urmia, IRAN

Summary:
Sexual dimorphism is an important principle in Biosystematics and Evolutionary studies of animal kingdom. In this survey, four geographical stations were chosen in the Urmia Lake (N2; M3-2; M1-2; S2) in order to study the sexual dimorphism among Artemia populations. Thirty male and female samples of Artemia urmiana were examined From each station, (twelve morphological characters were measured) and number of setae per furca were counted. Primary ecological factors were recorded for each station (Tab.1). T-Test was used to find out significant difference between means. Principal Components Analysis and Discriminant Function Analysis were used for classification of male and female samples in each station. In the PCA in each station male and female groups of Artemia urmiana were separated (Fig.1). In the Discriminant Analysis, in each station 100% of original groups were correctly classified.

Table 1. The primary ecological factors recorded from stations.

Fig 1. Classification of the male and female groups in each station by PCA.

Location of Stations