Between- and within-breed morphological variability in Moroccan sheep breeds

Abstract

Summary: The objective of this study was a morphological characterization of five Moroccan sheep breeds (Béni Guil, Boujaâd, D'man, Sardi and Timahdite) to assess between- and within-breed variability using multivariate analyses. Fourteen morphological measurements were collected on 876 adult animals of both sexes in 98 different flocks located in 22 geographic localities of five breeds. The multiple analysis of variance revealed that significant morphological differences existed between breeds. The overall proportion of total variance due to between-breed component was 28.3 percent. The factor analysis revealed three factors accounting for 50.1, 11.8 and 7.54 percent of total variance. The first factor had high loadings for variables relating to body size, whilst the second factor had high association with traits reflecting tail length and ear size. The third factor had high loadings for wool trait. The squared Mahalanobis distance between the five sheep breeds were highly significant (P< 0.001). The largest morphological divergence was shown between Béni Guil and Sardi breeds (23.5) and the smallest one was between Boujaâd and Sardi breeds (3.54). The discriminant functions clearly discriminated and assigned 94.4 percent of Béni Guil, 79.7 of Boujaâd, 88.5 percent of D'man, 86.7 of Sardi and 80.1 percent of Timahdite sheep into their breed of origin. Overall morphological differences observed within-breeds were due for 18.1 percent to geographic locality and for 20.7 percent to flock management. It was concluded that the information reported in this study will be the basis for the establishment of characterization and selection strategies for Moroccan sheep.