Multivariate Characterisation of Oulmes-Zaer and Tidili Cattle Using the Morphological Traits

Document Type: Research Article

Author

Department of Animal Production and Biotechnology,Hassan II Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine Institute, Madinate Al Irfane, 10 101, Rabat, Morocco

Abstract

Fourteen different morphological traits in 169 and 131 cattle of Oulmes-Zaer and Tidili, respectively were recorded and analyzed using a multivariate approach. The characters measured included heart girth, wither height, rump height, rump length, rump width, chest depth, body length, neck length, cannon circumference, ear length, ear width, head length, horn length and tail length. Breed significantly influenced all the traits investigated. Correlation coefficients among the body measurements ranged from 0.12 to 0.85 in Oulmes-Zaer and from -0.14 to 0.81 in Tidili cattle.In the varimax rotated principal component factor analysis, three factors were extracted, which explained about 65.1% and 55.4% of the total variation in Oulmes-Zaer and Tidili cattle, respectively. The communality ranged from 0.28 (horn length) to 0.82 (heart girth) in Oulmes-Zaer cattle and from 0.25 (horn length) to 0.79 (rump height) in Tidili cattle. Stepwise discriminant analysis showed that 9 out of 14 body measurements were found to have a potential discriminatory power. The canonical discriminant analysis showed that the squared Mahalanobis distance between breed means was significant, indicating that significant differences exist between Oulmes-Zaer and Tidili breeds. The raw canonical coefficients for the first canonical variable provided the greatest difference between the breed means (1.498 vs. -1.933). The second canonical variable did not provide any difference between means. The discriminant analysis showed that 98.2% and 100% of Oulmes-Zaer and Tidili animals, respectively were correctly classified. It was concluded that clear morphological differences existed between Oulmes-Zaer and Tidili cattle indicating that there were two distinct populations.

Keywords

References

Boujenane I. (2002). Les Races Bovines au Maroc. Rabat, Morocco.
Boujenane I. and OuraghL. (2010). Genetic analysis of native Moroccan cattle. Livest. Res. Rural. Dev. 22, 154-151.
Carpenter Jr J.A., Fitzhugh H.A., Cartwright T.C., Thomas R.C. and Melton A.A. (1978). Principal components for cow size and shape. J. Anim. Sci. 46, 370-375.
Cerqueira J.O.L., Feas X., Iglesias A., Pacheco L.F. and Araujo J.P.P. (2011). Morphological traits in portuguese bordaleira de entre douro e minho sheep: divergence of the breed. Anim. Reprod. Sci. 51, 635-641.
FAO. (2009). Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations the State of Food Insecurity in the World. Draft guidelines on phenotypic characterization of animal genetic resources. Available at: http://www.fao.org/docrep/meeting/022/am651e.pdf.
Hayashi Y., Nishida T., Mochizuki K. and Otsuka J. (1981). Measurements of the skull of native cattle and Banteng in Indonesia. Japanize J. Vet. Res. 43, 901-907.
Pundir R.K., Singh P.K., Singh K.P. and Dangi P.S. (2011). Factor analysis of biometric traits of Kankrej cows to explain body conformation. Asian-australas J. Anim. Sci. 24(4), 449-456.
SAS Institute. (2002). SAS/STAT, User’s Guide. SAS Institute, Cary, NC, USA.
Slimene A., Damergi C., Chammakhi L., Najar T. and Ben Mrad M. (2012). The use of principal component analysis to characterize bulls aged between 14 and 26 months in Tunisia. Res. Opin. Anim. Vet. Sci. 2(3), 207-211.
Tolenkhomba T.C., Konsam D.S., Singh N.S., Prava M., Singh Y.D., Ali M.A. and Motina E. (2012). Factor analysis of body measurements of local cows of Manipur, India. Int. Multidisciplin. Res. J. 2(2), 77-82.
Yakubu A., Ogah D.M. and Idahor K.O. (2009). Principal component of the morphostructural indices of white Fulani cattle. Trakia J. Sci. 7(2), 67-73.
Yakubu A., Idahor K.O., Haruna H.S., Wheto M. and Amusan S. (2010). Multivariate analysis of phenotypic differentiation in Bunaji and Sokoto Gudali cattle. Acta. Agric. Slovenica. 96(2), 75-80.
Yakubu A., Salako A.E. and Imumorin I.G. (2011). Comparative multivariate analysis of biometric traits of west African Dwarf and red Sokoto goats. Trop. Anim. Health Prod. 43, 561-566.

Iranian Journal of Applied Animal Science

Volume 5, Issue 2
June 2015
Pages 293-299

Files

History

  • Receive Date: 08 April 2014
  • Revise Date: 12 June 2014
  • Accept Date: 15 June 2014

Share

How to cite

Statistics