CORRELATION AND PATH ANALYSIS OF MORPHOLOGICAL TRAITS AND BODY WEIGHT IN SILVER POMFRET (Pampus argenteus)

C. Zhang¹, H. P. Yu¹, D. L. Wang^1* and S. L. Xu^{1, 2}

¹School of Marine Science, Ningbo University, Zhejiang, Ningbo 315211, China

²Agriculture Ministry Key Laboratory of Healthy Freshwater Aquaculture, Key Laboratory of Freshwater Aquaculture genetic and breeding of Zhejiang Province, Zhejiang Institute of Freshwater Fisheries, huzhou 313001, China

^*: Corresponding authors: Email wangdanli@nbu.edu.cn

ABSTRACT

Silver pomfret (Pampus argenteus) is an important economic fish for aquaculture industry in China and Southeast Asian countries.The relationship between twelve morphological traits of P. argenteus were studied at different growth stages [60-, 90-, 120-, and 360-days post hatching (dph)] by usingcorrelation, path analyses, and multiple linear regression tools. The results showed that coefficient of variation of the body weight and trunk length traits remained stable and at a high level across all age groups (all above 20%), while other traits were the opposite. The body length and tail length traits had great direct effect on the body weight of P. argenteus at the first three growth stages (60, 90, and 120 dph). However, body length and body height traits had great direct effect in 360 dph, and the direct effect coefficient of caudal length was negative, indicating that the trait had a negative effect on body weight.Multiple linear regression analysis between morphological traits and body weight indicated that R² was greater than 0.84 across all age groups (P < 0.05).The optimal multiple linear regression equations, as determined with stepwise regression, were constructed with morphological traits as independent variables and body weight as dependent variables.These results elucidated the linear relationship between the body weight and various main morphological traits of P. argenteus at different growth stages. In actual production, during mass selection of P. argenteus with body weight as the main objective, the recommended as auxiliary selection traits were the body length, body height, tail length, and caudal length traits. These results can provide a reference basis for the measurement of target traits for the selective breeding of new varieties of P. argenteus.