Otolith morphological analysis cannot distinguish Antarctic toothfish (Dissostichus mawsoni) stocks in the Southern Ocean

Fourier shape analysis was used to study the morphology of sagittal otoliths of 383 Dissostichus mawsoni from 3 Subareas using two statistical methods. Stepwise discriminant analysis showed a classification accuracy of 73.19%. Principal component analysis revealed the accumulated contribution rate of 29 principal components was 72.45%. These findings demonstrate that Fourier analysis of otolith morphology cannot distinguish the stock populations of D. mawsoni between Subareas 48.1, 48.6 and 88.1.