Multivariate analysis for morphological traits of the Hamra goat population in two regions of Morocco

Abstract

Summary The goal of this study was to characterize the Hamra goat population and to determine if Hamra goats of Beni Arouss and Rommani regions belong to the same population. Eleven morphometric traits of 157 Hamra animals (94 from Beni Arouss and 63 from Rommani) were used for this study. Overall, heart girth, body length, height at withers (HaW), height at rump (HS), chest depth (ChD), pelvis width (PW), chest width (CW), cannon circumference, head length (HeL), head width (HeW) and horn length (HL) of Hamra goats averaged 81.3, 61.5, 64.8, 65.3, 40.9, 19.3, 20.2, 9.67, 28.0, 26.3 and 23.4 cm, respectively. The effect of region was significant only on HaW, PW, HeL, HeW and HL, indicating certain homogeneity among goats of the two regions. Moreover, the inter region variance component ranged from 0 percent (absence of variability) for HS, CW, ChD and ChD to 18.5 percent for HeL, suggesting that the variability of body measurements between Beni Arouss and Rommani regions is very low. The factor analysis revealed four factors, which accounted for 73.5 percent of the total variance. The most discriminant variables between the two populations were HeL, HeW, PW and CW. The Mahalanobis distance between the two populations was 1.197, suggesting that there was genetic exchange between the two populations. The discriminant analysis showed that 80.9 percent of Rommani and 50.0 percent of Beni Arouss individuals were classified into their respective population. Results obtained will help in developing improvement and preservation strategies for the Hamra goat population.