Morphological heterogeneity in the giant African River Prawn, Macrobrachium vollenhovenii from three rivers systems in the Niger Delta Region, Nigeria

Abstract— The study investigated morphological variations among samples of Macrobrachium vollenhovenii captured from Taylor Creek, Calabar Estuary and New Calabar River in the Niger Delta Region. A total of 76 individuals were caught using cone-shaped bamboo basket traps. The prawns were identified and 18 morphological characters were measured on each individual. All the data generated were analyzed using the PAST3 and JASP statistical software. The results of the study indicated that the morphometric measurements among the populations of M. vollenhovenii total length, rostrum length, third segment length, fifth segment length and abdominal length were significant different (p < .05) while telson length, telson width, caudal length, merus length and palm length were not different (p > 0.05). The coefficient of regression in the length-weight relationship were positively allometric (p < 0.05) for all populations with values of 3.5402, 4.6686 and 4.420. The condition factor varied from 0.668 to 2.729 averaging 1.498, 1.628 and 1.630 for New Calabar River, Calabar Estuary and Taylor Creek, respectively.