Otolith Shape Analysis as a Tool for Species Identification and Studying the Population Structure of Different Fish Species

Resumo

An analysis and a comparison of the methods of geometric morphometrics as applied to fish species identification and to studies on the population structure of fish stocks based on peculiarities of the otolith shape are performed. A review of the geometric morphometric methods used in studies on fish otoliths is provided. The results of our own research on possible utilization of elliptical Fourier analysis for species identification are also described.