Abstract
This study was aimed to understand morphological discrimination of gilthead sea bream (Sparus aurata, L, 1758) from four
wild populations (WENZ, WDGN, WKYC and WYMR) and two farmed populations (FRMA and FRMB) which were
collected along Mediterranean coast of Turkey. After photographing each specimen, 10 landmarks were determined to
understand morphological structure of all populations by tpsDig 232 software program. With all landmark measurements,
PCA and DFA were used to see the discrimination of wild and farmed gilthead sea bream populations. As a result,
significant differences were found on twenty morphological characters and no significant differences were found in two
morphological characters of head in wild populations. This could be due to similar feeding habitat and environments
(lagoon) which did not let differ wild population on these two characters. However, morphological characters of farmed
populations were significantly different than all wild populations. It is known that some of Turkish hatcheries use Atlantic
origin gilthead sea bream breeders which show better reproduction quality than Mediterranean origin. Discrimination
between farm and wild population might be occurred by this case. On the other hand, selective breeding studies might have
affected the phenotypical characters of farmed sea bream. This indicates that phenotype of wild gilthead sea bream
populations had not been affected by farmed fish escapees in the main aquaculture region yet.
