AUTHOR=Zhang Cheng , Jacques Kimran Jean , Zhang Shun , Xu Shanliang , Wang Yajun , Wang Danli TITLE=Analyses of growth performance and realized heritability of Pampus argenteus in a breeding program in China JOURNAL=Frontiers in Marine Science VOLUME=9 YEAR=2022 URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/marine-science/articles/10.3389/fmars.2022.935924 DOI=10.3389/fmars.2022.935924 ISSN=2296-7745 ABSTRACT=

Silver pomfret (Pampus argenteus) is an economically important mariculture species. However, little is known about the genetic parameters of its commercially important traits. In order to determine whether continuous progress can be achieved by selection for growth, we took the body weight trait of East China Sea P. argenteus as the target trait of mass selection. The realized heritability of P. argenteus from the selected group and control group was analyzed at the three growth times (60, 90, and 120 days). The results showed that the growth performance parameters of the selected group in the third month post hatching were higher than those in the control group, but the opposite results were found in the fourth month. The morphological traits highly correlated with the body weight of P. argenteus were found by Pearson correlation analysis and path analysis, which were body length and tail length, respectively. On the 60th, 90th, and 120th days after hatching, the genetic gains of body weight trait in the selected group were 9.44%, 17.64%, and 15.18%, respectively, and the mean values of realized heritability were at moderate level. Nevertheless, in the selected group, the genetic variation values of the two morphological traits significantly related to body weight were all below 10%, and the genetic gains were relatively low and stable, but the genetic variation values of body weight trait in the selected group were above 20%, and genetic gains were relatively high. These implied that it is possible to obtain considerable genetic gains by selecting for body weight trait, and the results provide supportive evidence for the continuity of the P. argenteus-selective breeding program.