From Gametes to Pregnancy: New Strategies for Improving Livestock Reproductive Efficiency

Dear Colleagues,

With the frequent occurrence of extreme weather throughout the world, coupled with intensive demands for increased food production, the survival and development of more and more farm animals has become very challenging. Reproduction capacity is a prerequisite for ensuring population continuation and biodiversity. For farm animals, reproductive efficiency affects the overall profitability of farms. In the past decade, artificial insemination and embryo transformation, as classic techniques, have made outstanding contributions to improving farm animals’ reproductive efficiency. Based on these two techniques, involving gene engineering, stem cells, animal clones, etc., are constantly being updated and improved on. Therefore, improving reproductive efficiency of farm animals is beneficial for transferring excellent genetic information, evolution, biodiversity, breeding, and even generating profits for farms.

The theories of reproductive capacity for farm animals are related to female estrus, ovulation, fertilization, pregnancy, parturition, and sperm quality. To improve reproductive efficiency, we must include techniques of estrus detection, ovulation control, fertilization technique, pregnancy diagnosis, parturition control, oocyte, sperm and embryo cryopreservation, sex control, embryo transfer, stem cell, cloning, transgenic animal, hormone immunization, and genetic immunization. This Special Issue focuses on the theory and technique on how to improve reproductive efficiency. All types of articles, such as original research, opinions, and reviews, are welcome.

Dr. Xiaoyan Wang
Guest Editor

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