Abhatoo - Centre Nationale de Documentation

The Moroccan goat livestock is characterized by the existence of different populations and breeds distributed among diverse geographic areas, especially in mountain and rangelands. The objective of this study was to analyse the morphometric traits and the genetic structure that differentiate the Drâa goat breed from other local breeds including Atlas, Barcha and Ghazalia. The screening was done in the South-eastern Morocco and eight morphological measurements collected on 224 animals were analysed, and sixteen SSR markers were genotyped for 134 DNA samples. The results showed that the most discriminating morphometric traits between the studied breeds were the body length (BL), the high at withers (HW), the heart girth (HG), the hair length (HL) and the body weight (BW). Drâa breed had the highest BL (64.6 cm), HW (61.5 cm), HG (74.4 cm) and BW (27.2 kg). All breeds had a high genetic diversity, however more than 88.4 % of the total variance was distributed between individuals and only 1.85 % was due to differences between breeds. The Drâa breed showed the highest genetic distances from the other breeds, however, genetic structure analysis showed a high level of admixture between breeds, with a single well-defined cluster within Drâa breed. It was concluded that the goat breeds studied have a substantial but weakly structured genetic diversity, with the exception of Drâa breed which shows a higher degree of differentiation and population substructure. This differentiation can contribute in defining and in orienting its genetic improvement programs.