Otolith Morphology of Cichlidae Species in Lake Buyo, Côte d’Ivoire | InformativeBD

N’Dri Olga Rosemonde , Monney Attoubé Ida, Attoungbre Kouakou Séverin, and Koné Tidiani, from the different institute of the Côte d'Ivoire. wrote a research article about, Otolith Morphology of Cichlidae Species in Lake Buyo, Côte d’Ivoire. entitled, Otolith morphology of six species of Cichlidae from Lake Buyo in the South-west of Côte d’Ivoire. This research paper published by the International Journal of Biosciences (IJB).  an open access scholarly research journal on Biosciences. under the affiliation of the International Network For Natural Sciences | NNSpub. an open access multidisciplinary research journal publisher.

Abstract

The morphology of otoliths is used as an indicator of various ecological processes or properties. So the present study was aimed to provide baseline data on the morphology of otoliths in six species of Cichlidae. A total of 179 individuals belonging to six species of the Cichlidae fished in Lake Buyo in June 2021 by artisanal fisheries. The sagitta of these species studied present common morphological characteristics. Indeed, they are elliptical in shape and robust with a concave internal face and a convex external face. However, there are a few differences that help distinguish each species. In the relationships between the total length of the fish and the length of the otolith, the values of the allometry coefficient “a” are between 0 and 1 (0 ˂ a ˂ 1) for all the species considered; they reflect a lowering allometry between the length of the fish and the length of the otolith. The values of the coefficient of determination are very high in Sarotherodon melanotheron (r2 = 0.8961), Oreochromis niloticus (r2 = 0.8469) and Coptodon zillii (r2 = 0.8403). These values reflect a strong correlation between the total length of the fish and the length of the otolith of each species. Our study, in the Ivorian or West African context, has the advantage of providing, on the one hand, morphological data on the otoliths of freshwater fish and, on the other hand, means of estimating the size of fish at from those of the otoliths.

 

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 Introduction

Fish provides an accessible source of nutritious food and protein for a large portion of the world's population. In Africa, among all ingested protein sources, fish and seafood occupy fourth place, after cereals, legumes and milk (FAO, 2016). However, in developing countries, the late 1990s marked the beginning of the decline in overall catches in continental waters (FAO, 2002). It is currently accepted that fishery resources are not inexhaustible (Jamet and Lagoin, 1981). Thus, supplying populations constitutes a real challenge for governments, especially at a time when consumers are increasingly interested in the quality of their food, given the increasing pollution of aquatic environments. In such a context, it appears important to sustainably manage fish stocks and this necessarily requires better knowledge of the biology and ecology of fish.

The study of fish biology can concern certain organs such as otoliths which provide important information on the species concerned (Panfili et al., 1990). Otolith morphology is used to indicate various ecological processes or properties (Campana and Casselman, 1993). Like other biological structures, otolith morphology exhibits interspecific variability. Indeed, otoliths have a distinctive shape, often characteristic of the fish species to which they belong (Veen et al., 2005). This is why hydrobiologists, as well as taxonomists and archaeologists, often rely on the shape and size of preserved or undigested otoliths to determine which species and sizes of fish were eaten by predators (Olsson and North, 1997). The relationships between the otolith and the fish have been studied by several authors (Echeveria, 1987; Campana et al., 1993; Aydin et al., 2004 and Veen et al., 2005). Also, some researchers have succeeded in measuring the duration of the reproductive cycle of fish (Seret and Opic, 2011) and calculating their age (Panfili et al., 1990) using the otolith.

In Ivory Coast, most of the studies carried out in ichthyology have made it possible to understand the biodiversity of fish (Kamelan, 2014), their food ecology (Kouamélan, 1999), their reproduction (Koné, 2000) as well as their reproduction areas (N'Dri, 2020). However, the field of otolithology remains little explored. So far, the work carried out only concerns fish otoliths from the West African coasts (Veen and Hoedemakers (2005), and few data exist on freshwater fish. In these continental waters, the Cichlidae family is part of the most represented families. It constitutes, for example, 35% of the catches of fishermen from Lake Buyo; with more than eight species (N'Dri et al., 2020; Goli, 2021). Thus, given the combined effect of overexploitation and climate change which threatens the breeding areas of cichlids, which could lead to the disappearance of certain species (Yao et al., 2023), it appears necessary to describe their otoliths in order to archive them. The general objective of this study is therefore to determine the morphological and morphometric data of the otoliths of six species of Cichlids captured in Lake Buyo. This will firstly involve describing the morphology of the otoliths of the species collected and secondly studying the relationships between the size of the fish and that of its otolith.

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Source : Otolith morphology of six species of Cichlidae from Lake Buyo in the South-west of Côte d’Ivoire