Affiliation:
1. Animal Breeding and Genetics Unit, Department of Animal Science, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
2. Department of Wildlife and Ecotourism Management, University of Ibadan, Ibadan, Nigeria
Abstract
Classification and regression tree (CART) is a tree-based data mining
algorithm that develops a model to predict an outcome. This study purposed
to create a model to predict the body weight (BWT) of Red Sokoto (RS), Sahel
(SH), and West African Dwarf (WAD) goats using morphological measurements
(such as body length, BL; head girth, HG; head width, HDW; face length, FAL;
height at wither, HTW; rump length, RL; shoulder width, SW; rump width, RW;
and rump height, RH). In total, 600 goats were used for this study (200 each
of RS, SH, and WAD goats). Pearson?s Moment Correlation was used to evaluate
the degree of association between BWT and each morphological measurement.
Concomitantly, CART analysis was performed to estimate which independent
variable (morphological measurements) played a considerable role in the BWT
(dependent variable) prediction. In RS and WAD goats, a positive and
statistically significant (p < 0.0001) correlation was observed between BWT
and each morphological measurement. However, in SH goats, both positive and
negative statistically significant correlations were observed between BWT
and morphological measurements. The CART analysis indicated that in RS and
WAD goats, HG played a considerable role in BWT prediction, while, in SH
goats, BL was considered the most critical independent variable in BWT
prediction. Therefore, this study suggests that HG can be used as a
prognostic index for BWT estimation in Red Sokoto and West African Dwarf,
while BL can be used for Sahel goats. The SAS codes used are available via a
GitHub repository (https://github.com/Soullevram/CART).
Publisher
National Library of Serbia
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