Estimation of Family Variation and Genetic Parameter for Growth Traits of Pacific Abalone, Haliotis discus hannai on the 3th Generation of Selection

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to compare and analyze family variations for growth-related traits of Pacific abalone, Haliotis discus hannai. Genetic parameters and breeding values were estimated using all measurement data like shell length, shell width, and total weight as 18-month-old growth traits of 5,334 individuals of selected third generation's Pacific abalone produced in 2011. Family variations of 865 individuals of the upper 10 families with the largest number were inspected. Overall mean in phenotypic traits of 18-month-old Pacific abalone which was investigated in this study showed 54.5 mm of shell length, 36.8 mm of shell width and 21.3 g of total weight respectively. And, variation coefficient of total weight was 51.0%, so variability of data was shown to be higher than 21.1% of shell length and 20.7% of shell width. The family effects showed significant difference by each family (p < 0.05), and heritability of shell length, shell width, and total weight was medium with 0.370, 0.382, and 0.367 respectively. So it is considered that family selection is more advantageous than individual selection. On the basis of breeding values of estimated shell length and total weight, to investigate distribution and ranking by each individual about the upper 10 families with the largest number of individuals, the values were used by being changed into standardized breeding values. Based on shell length, it was investigated that the individual number of the upper 5.4% is 152 and the number of the lower 5.4% is 8. In case of total weight, it was inspected that the individual number of the upper 5.4% is 164 and the number of the lower 5.4% is 1. Like these, phenotypic and genetic diverse variations between families could be checked. By estimating genetic parameters and breeding values of a population for production of the next generation, if they are used properly in selection and mating, it is considered that more breeding effects can be expected.