Genetic Breeding and Reproduction of Aquatic Animals

Dear Colleagues, 

The process of obtaining high yields in aquaculture is dependent heavily on the use of varieties and strains. While reproduction technology is basic to genetic breeding of aquatic animals, after the breakthrough of artificial fertilization techniques for the four Chinese major carps in 1958–1960,  the freshwater fish culture ceased to be limited by the availability of naturally produced seed. Then, selective breeding, cross breeding, gynogenesis and polyploid breeding were applied to fish genetic breeding. Then, the 21st century, great changes in the study of genetic breeding of aquatic animals have been brought by the fast development of molecular biotechnology and bioinformatics. The information of various biological processes regulated at the molecular level, including the discovery of novel loci crucial for population genetics, breeding, and selection, was revealed. Furthermore, for the late decade, high-throughput techniques of the second-generation sequencing (SGS) and third-generation sequencing (TGS) varieties have been widely employed in the genetic breeding of aquatic animals, which promotes the process of whole genome breeding. Today, genetic improvements through new breeding and reproduction technology have been well documented in several farmed aquatic animals, including fish, shrimp, crab and shellfish, etc.

The genetic breeding research of aquatic animals targeting growth and feed efficiency, body shape, immunity and disease resistance, sex determination, stress tolerance, color and pigmentation, intermuscular bone, meat quality, and nutrition, etc., develops and progresses rapidly. So a deep dive into the mechanism of the above biological processes are needed to be further revealed and explained by using of new molecular biology and production technology.

In this Special Issue, publications include original research and reviews in the following fields: reproduction technology; gene function analysis; mapping of genes, traits and QTLs; molecular marker screening and linkage location; associations between genes and traits; genetic diversity; variability at gene and protein levels; the characterization of gene or protein expression and control, related to phenotypic or genetic variation.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Dongmei Ma
Dr. Huaping Zhu
Dr. Zaixuan Zhong
Prof. Qingheng Wang
Guest Editors

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