Otolith morphology of inland Aphanius (Teleostei, Cyprinodontidae) from Iran - a new "tool" for the discrimination of endemic species?

伊朗是阿法尼乌斯多样性的热点。到目前为止，已经描述了五种特有物种，很可能在该地区还存在其他特有物种。虽然这两个物种在外部形态上被认为非常相似，甚至完全相同，但可以根据分子数据进行区分。然而，到目前为止，还没有对其中四个物种的耳石进行研究。该项目的重点是能否将耳石形态确立为区分来自伊朗的特有Aphanius物种的新“工具”。这个项目有151个阿法尼乌斯标本可用。将用申请人和合著者最近介绍的一种新的定性和定量相结合的方法来分析耳石的形态。如果我们成功地证明耳石代表了诊断可靠的形态特征，我们将有助于识别新的、稀有和/或濒危的Aphanius物种及其地理分布。我们期望这一结果可以转移到其他鱼科，即耳石形态--如果对特有的Aphanius物种的诊断是可靠的--随后也可以用于区分迄今为止缺乏明显外部形态特征的其他物种。此外，我们将大大增加淡水鱼类耳石的价值，作为可用于河流和湖泊系统古地理分析的古生物数据来源。

Iran is a hot spot of Aphanius diversity. Five endemic species have been described to date, and it is very likely that additional endemic species occur in this region. Although the species are considered as very similar or even identical with regard to external morphology, they can be discriminated based on molecular data. However, the otoliths of four of these species have not been studied up to date. The project focuses on the question as to whether otolith morphology can be established as a new “tool” for the discrimination of the endemic Aphanius species from Iran. 151 Aphanius specimens are available for this project. Otolith morphology will be analyzed with a new combined qualitativequantitative method that was recently introduced by the applicant and co-authors. If we are successful in documenting that the otoliths represent diagnostically reliable morphological features, we would facilitate the identification of new, rare, and/or endangered Aphanius species and their geographic distribution. We expect that the results can be transferred to other fish families, i.e. that otolith morphology – if diagnostically reliable for the endemic Aphanius species - can subsequently also be used for the discrimination of other species that lack distinguishing external morphological characters so far. Furthermore, we would considerably increase the value of otoliths from freshwater fishes as a palaeontological source of data that can be used in palaeogeographic analyses of river and lake systems.