RESEARCH PAPER Morphometry, slaughtering performances, chemical and fatty acid composition of the protected designation of origin ‘‘Golden hump tench of Poirino highland’’ product Laura Gasco • Francesco Gai • Carola Lussiana • Rossella Lo Presti • Vanda Malfatto • Franco Dapra ` • Ivo Zoccarato Received: 1 October 2008 / Accepted: 4 May 2009 / Published online: 14 November 2009 Ó Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 Abstract One hundred and thirty-two tench were photographed and a total of 13 landmarks were identified. Fish were grouped in four size classes on length basis and different shape descriptors were computed. Landmark configurations were superim- posed. Size was computed as centroid size. The roundness coefficient, the log(partial area)/log(total area) ratio and the condition coefficient were calcu- lated. Slaughtering performances and fillet composi- tion analyses were performed. Shape variability was found primarily on cephalic area while head and tail regions were more homogeneous. A high correlation between centroid size and total length was found as well as a higher increase of the partial area than the total area justifying the hump shape of this tench. The scatter of relative warp 1 scores and centroid size for the four size classes has showed, with the increase of the length, a larger number of specimens that were characterised by a deep profile. Geometric morpho- metric approach produced a valuable tool in defining morphospaces for tench. Condition coefficient ranged from 1.24 to 1.29, without any significant difference among the size classes. Slaughtering performance resulted in agreement with those reported by other authors while VSI was lower. In fillets, the fatty acid profile was composed of about 30% of saturated fatty acids, 50% of monounsaturated fatty acids and 20% of polyunsaturated fatty acids with about 8% of docosahexaenoic acid. Atherogenic and thrombo- genic indices were 0.58 and 0.42, respectively. Both n6/n3 and polyunsaturated/saturated fatty acids ratios were in accordance with value recommended for a healthy nutrition giving positive evaluation of the nutritional qualities of tench. Keywords Body chemical composition  Fatty acids  Morphometry  Slaughtering performance  Tinca tinca Introduction Tench, Tinca tinca (L.), is a benthophagus omnivo- rous cyprinid pond fish species widely distributed in Europe. It has been the most important by-fish in conventional pond carp farming (Billard and Flaj- s ˇhans 1995). After its introduction into Africa, Aus- tralia, Southeast Asia and North America, recently it has been introduced into China (Wang et al. 2006) where it represents a promising new species for aquaculture because of its quality and taste (Wedekind et al. 2003; Wang et al. 2006). In Piedmont its presence has been documented for centuries L. Gasco (&)  F. Gai  C. Lussiana  R. Lo Presti  V. Malfatto  I. Zoccarato Dipartimento di Scienze Zootecniche, Via L. da Vinci 44, Grugliasco (TO), Italy e-mail: laura.gasco@unito.it F. Dapra ` CNR Institute of Science of Food Production, Turin Division, Via L. da Vinci 44, Grugliasco (TO), Italy 123 Rev Fish Biol Fisheries (2010) 20:357–365 DOI 10.1007/s11160-009-9141-2