Assessing the Morphological Diversity of Ethiopian Indigenous Chickens Using Multivariate Discriminant Analysis of Morphometric Traits for Sustainable Utilization and Conservation

This study aimed to differentiate indigenous chicken populations of four administrative zones including Kaffa, Sheka, Metekel, and Bale based on morphometric measurements using multivariate analysis. Data on quantitative traits were collected from 3069 adult indigenous chickens of both sexes. Live weight (LW), body length (BL), breast circumference (BC), wingspan (WS), shank length (SL), shank circumference (SC), keel length (KL), back length (BkL), and neck length (NL) were recorded. A cluster and discriminant analysis was applied to identify the combination of variables that best differentiate among chicken populations. Results indicated that Metekel chickens were characterized by higher LW, BL, KL, and BkL and differed from other groups (P < 0.05). Sheka chickens demonstrated the highest BC, WS, SL, SC, and NL being different from others (P < 0.05). Cluster analysis generated two distinct groups in which chickens of Bale and Sheka were clustered in one group while those of Metekel and Kaffa in another group each separated with sub-clusters. All Mahalanobis distances among the four chicken populations were significant being the shortest between Sheka and Bale chickens and the longest between those of Metekel and Bale (P < 0.0001). Three statistically significant (P < 0.001) canonical variables (CAN) were extracted of which CAN1 and CAN2 accounted for 73.2 and 14.6% of the total variations, respectively. The scatter plot generated by canonical discriminant analysis showed that CAN1 effectively discriminated between chickens of Metekel and Kaffa while the CAN2 best discriminated against those of Bale and Sheka. The discriminant analysis correctly classified 95.3, 94.9, 92.3, and 82.2% of Metekel, Bale, Kaffa, and Sheka chickens into their origin population, respectively. The current study revealed that multivariate analysis of morphometric traits provided a practical basis for differentiating the indigenous chicken populations into different groups. However, the authors recommend genetic characterization studies to validate the detected morphometric-based differentiation in chicken populations.