Líffræðifélag Íslands - biologia.is
Líffræðiráðstefnan 2025
Erindi/veggspjald / Talk/poster E103
Höfundar / Authors: Kenedy Annejulee Williams (1), Guðbjörg Ósk Jónsdóttir (1), Ines Eloidin (1) and Arnar Pálsson(1).
Starfsvettvangur / Affiliations: 1. University of Iceland
Kynnir / Presenter: Kenedy Annejulee Williams
The evolution of feeding morphology associates with high diversity in fishes, including in salmonids. The craniofacial features used for feeding can be used as a model to study adaptive and parallel evolution. Intraspecific diversity in ecological traits related to feeding is particularly impressive in salmonids such as the Icelandic Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus) and brown trout (Salmo trutta). This project aims to explore variation in size and shape of craniofacial elements (maxilla and lower jaw bones), and head morphology in Arctic charr and brown trout in Iceland. Naturally caught Brown trout, anadromous charr, lake charr, piscivorous charr, and large benthic charr were analyzed for shape differences. The main questions are: which bones differ most strongly in size or shape between species, shape of which bones varies most strongly , with size and do does this allometry vary by species or populations? Preliminary results reveal shape differences between Arctic char and brown trout. Analyzing the divergence in craniofacial traits between these two salmonid species could provide deeper insights into evolutionary process.