The colour hue and saturation of the fish skin are important factors in fish breeding, reflecting the momentary physiological status of the fish. Algorithms evaluating fish colour were created in the MATLAB environment and compiled in the stand-alone application, Expertomica Fishgui. Fish groups fed on several diets (varying in carotenoid supplements) were compared as concerns image analysis methods on colour changes. Images were processed and evaluated to locate body positions, areas and colour saturation. Conversion from the Red-Green-Blue (RGB) colour space to chromatic colours was carried out to reduce the colour space. The threshold of skin chromatic colour was set on basis of the chromatic histograms using Otsu automatic bimodal segmentation. The average colour was calculated through all pixels of the selected area in the original image and through all images of the group. Colour conversion to the Hue-Saturation-Value (HSV) colour space was also carried out. Relative deviation between the saturation of samples in the control and the experimental groups provided a means of judgement. The dominant wavelength was also determined.

We generalize the point information gain (PIG) and derived quantities, i.e., point information gain entropy (PIE) and point information gain entropy density (PIED), for the case of the Rényi entropy and simulate the behavior of PIG for typical distributions. We also use these methods for the analysis of multidimensional datasets. We demonstrate the main properties of PIE/PIED spectra for the real data with the examples of several images and discuss further possible utilizations in other fields of data processing.

Rainbow trout, or mykiss (Oncorhynchus mykiss), is one of the most popular species used in aquaculture and has been naturalized worldwide, including in the Central Asian Balkhash basin, which has unique aboriginal fish fauna. Both rainbow trout from European farms and wild mykiss from Kamchatka were introduced to some mountain lakes and rivers of the Balkhash basin about 50 years ago. This study investigates the current distribution and life history traits of the alien species and its possible impact on the local fish fauna. This study showed that the rainbow trout occupies various habitats in the Ili River basin: mountain lakes, fast-flowing mountain rivers, and lowland rivers with slow currents and warm water (up to +27 °C). Rainbow trout from European fish farms dominate the mountain Middle Kolsay Lake, while the wild trout from Kamchatka occupies the small Ulken Kokpak River. Both co-occur in the Chilik River. Contrary to that in other regions, the distribution of rainbow trout in the Balkhash basin remained almost the same after their introduction. Broad intrapopulation variability in terms of size, growth rate, and maturation age was revealed, apparently as a result of adaptation to the new environment and intrapopulation competition. In particular, the growth rate has decreased, but life span, surprisingly, has increased as compared to the originally introduced fish. Intrapopulation variation in growth and maturity patterns was also noted. Differences in skin coloration between highland (cold-water) and lowland (warm-water) populations were discovered. The feeding mode of naturalized trout is insectivorous (insect imago), indicating that it occupies its own niche in the local fish communities. The largest population of rainbow trout was recorded in the Lower Kolsay Lake, lowering the population of native fish species, while in other localities, no negative impact on local fish communities was recorded.