Discrimination of the sardine stocks by using a morphometric and meristic analysis along the Moroccan Atlantic coast

Abstract

The variation of morphometric and meristic characters among three fishing areas of sardine was addressed considering the 300 specimenss from the Moroccan Atlantic coast, during the period from March 2017 to February 2018. The meristic count (Six characters) and morphometric character (fifteen characters) of each specimen were studied. The total length (TL) of all analysed specimens ranged from 135 to 249mm, while their weights ranged between 39.50g and 168.89g. Body length analysis showed a different value between males and females according to the fishing areas, Larache, Safi and Dakhla. For vertebrae analysis, three groups were compared according to their locations: the first one obtained from larache (TL average = 162.55 mm), the second was from Safi (TL average = 186.14 mm); whereas, the samples from Dakhla belonged to the third group (TL average = 231.78mm). The number of vertebrae for the three groups ranged between 48 and 51, with the most abundant vertebrae class of 50 vertebrae (37.70 %), whereas a minimal number of sardines (4.90 %) had 48 vertebrae. The number of dorsal fin rays (DFR) ranged from 16 to 18, and the average value was 17.11 ± 0.51. Statistical data processing, by uni-and multivariate methods allowed us to highlight significant differences for specimens among the different fishing areas.