Morphometric characterization and diversity of indigenous ducks in agro-ecological zones of Ghana

Abstract

The study characterized the indigenous duck populations in three agro-ecological zones (AEZs) of Ghana using a primary phenotypic characterization approach involving observation and body measurement. Quantitative trait data were randomly collected on 414 matured ducks across three AEZs (138 from each AEZ). A 1:2 male-to-female selection ratio was used in each of the AEZs. Morphometric traits were subjected to analysis of variance with sex and agro-ecological zone as fixed factors using the General Linear Model. A simple and multiple regression analysis was used to estimate the relationship among morphometric traits to predict body weight. The results revealed that all morphometric traits were significantly influenced (p<0.05) by sex. Drakes were significantly superior (p<0.05) to ducks in the measured morphometric traits. A medium to high (0.593-0.945) positive correlation was observed among morphometric traits, with body length (0.894) as the best predictor of body weight. The discriminant analysis accurately classified 61.40% of ducks into their respective populations with cross-validation. The Mahalanobis distance was longer (2.27) between the Semi-deciduous and the Rain forest duck populations. The first principal component (PC1) extracted from factor analysis for the Semi-deciduous forest, Coastal savanna, Rain forest and the pooled principal component for all AEZs, explained the maximum variation among the populations with a corresponding total variance of 80.49%; 81.35, 82.93 and 80.59%. The PC1 had higher loadings on body weight (0.965), suggesting that body weight is the trait with the highest discriminatory power among the morphometric traits. A medium to high communality was observed for all morphometric characters measured, indicating that those traits could be used to explain the overall variability in the body dimensions of ducks.