Natural hybridization between immigrant narrow–barred Spanish mackerel Scomberomorus commerson (Lacepède, 1800) and endemic West African Spanish mackerel Scomberomorus tritor (Cuvier, 1832) in the Egyptian Mediterranean coast

Abstract

Immigrant narrow–barred Spanish mackerel, West African Spanish mackerel and specimens with an external appearance somewhere between these putative parents were collected from Abu Qir Bay, East Alexandria, Egypt. The hybrid index results and univariate and multivariate analysis indicated a natural hybridization between these two species. The discriminant function analysis successfully classified individual fish in the data to one of the three fish groups. Squared Mahalanobis distances extracted from the groups indicated the three groups were clearly distinct from each other. Moreover, distances between the hybrid and Scomberomorus tritor were longer than those of the hybrid and S. commerson. The mean values of the condition factor for the hybri were significantly higher than those of S. commerson. Natural mortality of the hybrid was significantly lower than that of the exotic parent (S. commerson), indicating that the environmental conditions in the examined region are more suitable for the hybrid type species than for the invasive parental species.