On Farm Phenotypic Characterization of Local Cattle Populations

Phenotypic characterization is fundamental to the establishment of national inventories of animal genetic resource, to effective monitoring of animal genetic resource populations and to the establishment of early-warning and response systems for animal genetic resource. Ethiopia is known by having large cattle genetic resources in Africa. Local cattle of Hadiya zone in Ethiopia, which may have some special attributes, has rarely been found in literature and no studies have been conducted so far in characterization. This book, therefore; provides the new methodologies in characterization how to use multivariate analysis to group sample population to the closest group in the population, how to use Canonical discriminant (CANDISC) analysis in quantitative traits, how to estimate Mahalanobis¿ distances between independent variables and how to use stepwise discriminant (STEPDISC) analysis to determine the power of explaining phenotypic variation which can be used by professionals in the area of agriculture, biology, environment and ecology, biodiversity institutes, researches and genetics.