Abstract:

With increasing demand for improved farmed Nile tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) fish seed, there
is heightened demand for quality and proven broodstock by hatchery operators throughout the
country and in the East African region. Uganda, fortunately, is endowed with vast natural Nile
tilapia (Oreochromis niloticus) stocks in lakes Albert, Edward and George, as well as in Albert Nile
River. To aquaculturally benefit from the different attributes of different stocks/strains, it is
important to establish the existing strains in a manner that is phenotypically discernible where
such differences are apparent. In this study, we used a suite of morphological traits to identify
strains of Nile tilapia among 425 individuals sampled from the four major water bodies, lakes –
Albert, Edward-George, Kyoga and Victoria. Morphological variation was investigated using
multivariate approaches including principal component analysis, discriminant analysis and
cluster analysis of 22 morphometric characters. These analyses indicated that there was high
morphological variation among the different populations of Nile tilapia and the fish could be
grouped into their respective sampled areas based on these morphological differences