An application of automated feature extraction and geometric morphometrics: Temperature-related changes in body form of Cyprinus carpio juveniles

Automated image acquisition and geometric morphometric analysis are applied to the study of morphological ecophenotypism in the fry of carp, Cyprinus carpio, of the same progeny reared in aquaria varying the water temperature. The image analysis procedure described here provides an in vivo method of detection and the extraction of simple features: in this sense it can be considered a powerful tool to obtain a preliminary insight of the occurring shape changes and the acquisition of large amounts of data without sacrifying fishes. On the other hand, the recently established geometric morphometrics offers a detailed description of shape differences and growth trends in the external morphologies by analysing the geometric properties of the form. Thus, the approach here described could be applied to a wide range of fisheries topics. © 1996 Elsevier Science B.V.