Comparative multivariate analysis of biometric traits of West African Dwarf and Red Sokoto goats

Abstract

The population structure of 302 randomly selected West African Dwarf (WAD) and Red Sokoto (RS) goats was examined using multivariate morphometric analyses. This was to make the case for conservation, rational management and genetic improvement of these two most important Nigerian goat breeds. Fifteen morphometric measurements were made on each individual animal. RS goats were superior (P<0.05) to the WAD for the body size and skeletal proportions investigated. The phenotypic variability between the two breeds was revealed by their mutual responses in the principal components. While four principal components were extracted for WAD goats, three components were obtained for their RS counterparts with variation in the loading traits of each component for each breed. The Mahalanobis distance of 72.28 indicated a high degree of spatial racial separation in morphology between the genotypes. The Ward's option of the cluster analysis consolidated the morphometric distinctness of the two breeds. Application of selective breeding to genetic improvement would benefit from the detected phenotypic differentiation. Other implications for management and conservation of the goats are highlighted.

Multivariate analysis of morphostructural characteristics in Nigerian indigenous sheep

“…This is similar to the report of Yakubu et al (2010b) in the morphometric differentiation of West African Dwarf goats from three agro-ecological zones. Discriminant analysis however, has been used to separate West African Dwarf and Red Sokoto goats into distinct genetic groups with a long Mahalanobis distance of 72.3 (Yakubu et al, 2010a).…”

Classification of four ovine breeds of southern peninsular zone of India: Morphometric study using classical discriminant function analysis

“…2008; Yakubu et al . 2011) has not yet found place in the morphometric differentiation of Indian sheep breeds. In all these cases, the classical discriminant function analysis method was found to be relatively efficient and allowed differences between breeds and subpopulations to be detected, as well as the relative distance between them to be assessed.…”

Multivariate Analysis on Cranium Measurements of Three Breeds of Goat in Central Java

“…Multivariate analysis is a method for rapid and cheap to identify goat breeds and has been widely used to study the breed characterization of goat in Indonesia (Batubara et al, 2011;Kurnianto et al, 2013), goat in Nigeria (Yakubu et al, 2010;Okpeku et al, 2011;Yakubu et al, 2011), goat in Burkina Faso (Traore et al, 2008), goat in Ghana (Birteeb et al, 2012), goat in Saudi Arabia (Aziz and Al-Hur, 2013). Skeletal characters including cranium form reveal the highest heritability of all the quantitative traits.…”