The crustacean Artemia (Branchiopoda, Anostraca) is one of the most common inhabitants of aquatic hypersaline, coastal and/ or continental lakes, lagoons and saltworks. With the indispensable use of its nauplii in marine aquaculture, the cysts of Artemia have become a natural resource of great commercial importance, which has led to the need to study its biodiversity and to know its biogeography, in order to provide and establish its commercial exploitation as a resource. Although the biogeography of species and populations of Artemia is known in the Mediterranean area, its distribution in the countries of North Africa is not yet well established. During the last decades great efforts have been made in this regard, especially in countries such as Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia, where we have verified the existence of a pattern of biodiversity similar to that described in the European Western Mediterranean, represented mainly by three common forms : the sexual species Artemia salina (Leach 1758) and the two parthenogenetic strains (A. parthenogenetica Barigozzi, 1980) : diploid and tetraploid. Furthermore, the exclusive use of cysts of the species from America A. franciscana (Kellogg 1906) in marine aquaculture and its commercial generalization, has conducted to the introduction of this exotic species in the Mediterranean basin, taking the profile of an invasive species, and leading to the elimination of native strains by a simple competition phenomenon. This potential threat on the diversity of the genus can also affect the North African countries today, where we have verified the presence of some populations of the American species in Morocco, and in Tunisia.
A total of 81 samples captured between November 2017 to September 2019 were morphometrically analyzed as part of this study. In this latter we tried to compare between the population of the dam (artificial environment) and the population of the river (natural environment) in two watersheds for two different species of Luciobarbus in western Algeria. Sites A (natural) and B (artificial) are located at almost the same altitude (285-571 m) whereas sites C (artificial) and D (natural) are located in two different altitudes (285-571 m) and (1078-1821 m) respectively. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was carried out to test the significance of the variations of each morphometric character between the 4 populations (A, B, C and D). The values of all the external morphometric parameters were the highest in the population of the Boughrara dam followed by El-hammam river and Bouhanifia dam while the population of Chouly river showed the lowest morphometric measurements. The mean of total length (TL) and weight (Weight), for example, of the Boughrara dam were the largest of the four populations (33.03 ± 2.02 cm and 474.46 ± 116.76 g respectively) while those of the river Chouly were the smallest (15.44 ± 1.23 cm and 55.55 ± 13.01 respectively). The sex ratio analysis was performed by studying the overall sex ratio. Females were more abundant than males (1: 1.7). The graphical representation of Quantitative Variables by PCA showed that the morphometric variables are all positively correlated with each other by quite different rates. The Shannon and Weaver index was calculated from the different characters in the four regions studied: A, B, C and D. The region of site B (Bouhanifia dam) had the highest average diversity index with 0.92, followed by the region of site A (El-hammam river) (0.88). The lowest mean value was found in site C (Chouly river) (0.29).
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.