Phenotypic diversity based on quantitative morphological data of native chicken breed Canela-Preta

Canela-Preta represents one of the native chicken breeds in risk of extinction, therefore needing in depth studies which allow the preservation, conservation and sustainable use of this genetic resource in tropical regions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the phenotypic variability chicken breed Canela-Preta using quantitative data by multivariate analysis. Collections of data were carried out in populations of chickens from the municipalities Oeiras, Queimada Nova (both in semiarid region) and Teresina (in Between Rivers region), in the state of Piau?, Brazil. Information of 116 adult birds was collected: 43 from Teresina; 37 from Oeiras and 36 from Queimada-Nova (total of 97 females and 19 males). The traits measured included 21 quantitative phenotypic descriptors. Genetic diversity was obtained by cluster analysis (Cruz et al., 2011). The average Euclidian distance (used for data without repetition) was used to measure the dissimilarity. The Unweighted Pair Group Method with Arithmetic Mean (UPGMA) was used, and a dendrogram was established with the groups with higher similarity. Values of cophenetic correlation were used to test the clusters consistency by UPGMA, after obtaining dendrograms (Sokal and Rohlf, 1962). The bootstrap technique was used to obtain confidence interval for dendrograms built through the hierarchical method. The software R (version 3.2.1) was used to do the analysis. Two groups were formed with bootstrap 65% and 64% by hierarchical method UPGMA. The clusters obtained had a good consistency in considering the cophenetic correlation, which was equal to 0.75. The chicken under investigation in this study showed variations for the quantitative traits that were analyzed, what may be an indication of genetic variability in these populations. However, this variability has not enough discrepancy to ungroup animals, what demonstrates that in this situation there is only one genetic group, which is phenotypically standardized. These results would contribute to future genetic management and breeding