Comparison of growth and morphological characteristics of inbred and hybrid families of Micropterus salmoides from Foshan and Taiwan populations

Taking Foshan and Taiwan populations of Micropterus salmoides as parents, we established four populations including Foshan inbreeding group (Foshan ♀×Foshan ♂), Taiwan inbreeding group (Taiwan ♀×Taiwan ♂), normal progeny (Foshan ♀×Taiwan ♂) and reciprocal progeny (Taiwan ♀×Foshan ♂) , and carried out a 6-month experiment, in order to compare their growth and morphological characteristics. Results show that the growth performance and coefficient of variation for body mass were significantly higher in the hybid groups than in the two inbred groups. The results of morphological analysis show that the morphological differences of the four populations were mainly in the middle part of trunk and tail. The contribution rate of the first three principal components was 92.9%, and that of the first principal component was 71.3%, mainly reflecting the morphological characteristics of the front and middle part of the body. The contribution rate of the second principal component was 16.6%, reflecting the characteristics of the tail region of fish body. In the scatter plot of the scores of the first two principal components, the four populations could be completely distinguished due to the low overlap area. The stepwise discriminant model constructed by combining measurable traits and frame traits showed the highest accuracy (86.7%–96.0%). The results provide references for the growth and morphological identification of hybrid families of M. salmoides from Foshan and Taiwan populations.