Genetic Breeding and Reproduction of Aquatic Animals—2nd Edition

Dear Colleagues, 

The process of obtaining high yields in aquaculture is heavily dependent on the use of varieties and strains. While reproduction technology is essential in the genetic breeding of aquatic animals, after breakthroughs in developing artificial fertilization techniques for the four major Chinese carps in 1958–1960, freshwater fish culture was no longer limited by the availability of naturally produced seed. Then, selective breeding, cross breeding, gynogenesis, and polyploid breeding were introduced into fish genetic breeding. In the 21st century, major changes are occurring in the study of genetic breeding in aquatic animals thanks to the rapid development of molecular biotechnology and bioinformatics. The details of various biological processes regulated at the molecular level, including the discovery of novel loci crucial to population genetics, breeding, and selection, have been revealed. Furthermore, in recent decades, high-throughput second-generation sequencing (SGS) and third-generation sequencing (TGS) technique have been widely employed in the genetic breeding of aquatic animals, facilitating the process of whole-genome breeding. Today, genetic improvements due to new breeding and reproduction technology are well documented in several farmed aquatic animals, including fishes, shrimps, crabs, and shellfish.

Research on the genetic breeding of aquatic animals is developing and progressing rapidly, targeting growth and feed efficiency, body shape, immunity and disease resistance, sex determination, stress tolerance, color and pigmentation, intermuscular bone, meat quality, and nutrition. Therefore, a deep dive revealing and explaining the mechanisms behind the above biological processes is needed, using new molecular biology and production technology.

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

We look forward to receiving your contributions

Dr. Huaping Zhu
Dr. Dongmei Ma
Dr. Zaixuan Zhong
Guest Editors

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• genetic breeding
• reproduction technology
• gene
• protein
• molecular marker
• trait
• QTLs
• molecular marker
• fish
• shrimp
• crab
• shellfish
• aquatic animals
• transcriptomics
• proteomics
• metabonomics