Occurrence of morphotypes in the invader species, Artemia franciscana Kellogg, 1906 (Crustacea: Anostraca) from Covelong salt works, South India

The present paper documents the occurrence of morphotypes in the natural population of Artemia franciscana, colonized in Covelong salterns, Kelambakkam (South India). Morphotyping was done based on the variations in the structure and morphology of graspers and its basel width in male and brood pouch morphology in female. These observations resulted in four types in male and three in female population. To further confirm, the morphometric measurements of specific characters were made with male and female morphotypes. Principal Components Analysis revealed that male morphotypes were distributed into four different groups and the female morphotypes almost clustered in to one group. The discriminant analysis performed, based on the morphological variations, registered as much as 98% and 67% with male and female morphotypes respectively. These morphological variations based on statistical analysis, further confirm the occurrence of morphotypes in male and female populations. However, further genomic studies on these morphotypes would provide more light on these aspects.