I guess sample size of 18 seems small for a cluster analysis and you might encounter overfitting and generalisability issues.

@muhammed Thank you for the reply.

You can perform a clustering analysis with 18 genotypes and 9 variables. However, with a small sample size (18 genotypes), the clustering results might be less reliable, especially if the data lacks clear separation. Ensure that your variables are meaningful and standardised.

Methods like hierarchical clustering or k-means can be applied, but validation techniques (e.g., silhouette score, gap statistic) should be used to assess cluster quality. If possible, increasing the sample size would improve robustness.

Consider dimensionality reduction (e.g., PCA) to visualise cluster separation effectively.

Thank you @Udeme