Characterization of Oreochromis niloticus Strains of Lake Kariba Culture Fisheries using Morphological and Meristic Methods

Oreochromis niloticus fish collected from Yalelo Fishery, Fwanyanga Fishery and Choombwe Fishery of Lake Kariba were investigated by multivariate analysis of 23 morphometric measurements and 7 meristic counts. Dendrograms were used to delineate the sampled specimens using PC-ORDTM Software and the differences among strains were tested using One-way ANOVA in Statistix 9 Software (P = 0.05). Meristic analysis did not show a high divergence among the strains while morphometric analysis showed that the sampled fish could be characterized into three different strains. These results showed that the tested fish samples could be grouped into 3 types based on morphometric characters. The morphometric differences among the sampled O. niloticus strains may have appeared due to genetic differences among the collected specimens.