Abstract: 【Objective】 China has among the world’s most abundant animal genetic resources; the number of mammal and poultry breeds account for 1/6 of global known taxa. Animal Genetic Resources in China was investigated and edited under the ministry of agriculture’s leadership and organization over 8 years. This book summarizes the geographical distribution and characteristics of China's indigenous and imported cultivars and species of imported livestock. We analyzed some production traits of Chinese indigenous sheep breeds using the section, sheep and goats of Animal Genetic Resources in China, We expected to determine cultivation material suitable for meat breeding. 【Method】 13 meat-related traits including data on body size, carcass and reproductive traits of indigenous sheep breeds were summarized from this resource. First, the indigenous breeds were divided into Mongolian, Kazakh and Tibetan groups and then their traits were analyzed using multiple comparison, principal component and hierarchical clustering methods within the statistical program R environment. 【Result】 Chinese indigenous sheep breeds are widely distributed according to our generated geographical distribution map. Four provinces (autonomous regions) of Xinjiang, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and Shandong have relatively high level of diversity which respectively contain 13, 7, 5 and 5 breeds. Chinese indigenous sheep were mainly concentrated in the north, northwest and southwest plateau of China. The Kazakh group breeds mainly concentrate in the Xinjiang area, while the Tibetan group is on the Yunnan-Guizhou plateau. The Mongolian group is the largest and most widely distributed in the northern, central, and eastern parts of China. The multiple comparison analysis indicates that the productions performance of the Mongolia group is best, and Kazakh is worst. Three major lineages are distinguished via principal components 1 and 2, These results infer that Large-tailed Han, Guangling Large-tailed and Yecheng sheep belonged to the Mongolia group; Minxian Black Fur sheep belonged to the Tibetan. Chinese indigenous sheep were split into three categories by cluster analysis which we called low-yield & reproduction, high-yield & low-reproduction and high-yield & reproduction respectively. The high-yield & reproduction group held 7 breeds: Dulang, Large-tailed Han, Wadi, Taihang Fur, Yuxi Fat-tailed and Hu sheep. 【Conclusion】 Our analysis indicates that unclassified sheep breeds can be distinguished and inferences made as to which recognized group they belong based on 13 quantitative traits; moreover this method can be applied to the classification of newly discovered sheep breeds resources. We also found seven breeds from 42 Chinese indigenous sheep breeds were close to a specialized meat breed, and supporting to sheep bred or hybrid as the ideal material. This study not only recognizes Chinese indigenous sheep genetic resources, but also provides some references to help analyze other livestock types by the use of Animal Genetic Resources in China.

Key words: sheep, local breeds, mutton sheep, multivariate analysis