Quantifying phenotypic relationships among Arsi, Bale and Jemjem cattle breeds of Ethiopia

Abstract

Nine morphometric and 16 morphological traits were used to characterize and quantify phenotypic relationships among Arsi, Bale and Jemjem cattle breeds. A total of 441 randomly selected adult cattle (342 females and 99 males) from three purposively selected districts were used. Univariate and multivariate analysis procedures of statistical analysis software (SAS) were used to analyze the data. Clear morphological and morphometric variations were not observed among the cattle breeds. The majority of the studied cattle possessed uniform coat colour pattern (78%), black coat colour (61%), forward-oriented horns (65.8%), widely spaced horns (71.4%) and curved horns (76%). They mostly had erected humps (96.2%), small humps (66.7), mainly located at the cervicothoracic position (77.8%) with a straight face (100%) and back profile (92%) while their rump was sloppy (100%). Overall, 44.4% and 45.6% were medium- and long-tailed, respectively, while most (72.1%) of the cattle possessed medium dewlap width. Most (57.6%) of the males had medium perpetual sheaths while naval flap was not observed on most (53.2%) of their female counterparts. In addition to the univariate analysis, the multivariate analysis also failed to show significant separation among the breeds, as indicated by the short Mahalanobis distances and low eigenvalues. In conclusion, Arsi, Bale and Jemjem cattle breeds were found to be phenotypically inseparable. However, the observed phenotypic similarities among these breeds do not necessarily mean that these cattle breeds are genetically the same. Therefore, further molecular characterization is recommended to quantify the degree of genetic relationships among the studied breeds.