Canonical Discriminant Analysis of Locally Adapted Muscovy Ducks (Cairina moschata) in Nassarawa State

Abstract

The study was undertaken to determine phenotypic genetic distance of locally adopted Muscovey ducks in Nasarawa South Agricultural Zone. Body weight and body linear measurements were determined across Lafia, Doma and Awe Local Government Areas. The data collected were analyzed using Canonical Discriminant Analysis of SPSS statistical package. The results obtained indicated higher genetic variability across the study area. Wing length demonstrated the highest variability in Lafia local Government Area. While body length showed the most variability in Doma and Awe Local Government Areas. In the three Local Government Areas, body length showed the lowest genetic variability. The significance of the discriminant functions tested with Wilks Lambda (0.682 and 0.250) and Bartlett's test (chi-square 202.919 and 18.945) were highly significant thus, indicating the validity for the canonical function 1 as evident by corresponding higher canonical correlation values. Canonical function 2 had weak correlation and lower Chi square value compared to function 1. There were significant genetic differentiations when Body Weight was employed to account for the effect of locations (LGAs) between birds from Lafia, Doma and Awe. The number of individual original count and their corresponding percent count were 62.00%, 57.00% and 78.00% for birds from Lafia, Doma and Awe (locations 1, 2, and 3), respectively with mean value of 65.7% which were correctly classified. There was cluster plots of individual observations around the means of the three (3) locations of the Muscovy duck.  It was concluded that wing and body length could be used as selection criteria in the study area due to their high coefficient of variation values.