Estimating the heritability for growth‐related traits in the pearl oyster, Pinctada fucata martensii (Dunker)

Twelve paternal half-sib families (or 36 full-sib families) of the pearl oyster, Pinctada fucata martensii (Dunker), were produced according to the requirements of hierarchical genetic mating design. A total of 4320 individuals, aged 15 months, were measured for seven growth-related traits. Predicated upon the additive-dominance genetic analysis model, varying genetic variance components and then heritabilities of the growth-related traits of interest were estimated using analysis of variance. Results showed that seven growth-related traits had larger additive genetic variances (P 0.05), the dominance genetic variances of other six traits were all larger (P<0.05). Narrow- and broad-sense heritabilities for the seven traits were, respectively, 0.64 ± 0.10 and 0.78 ± 0.12 for shell length, 0.49 ± 0.06 and 0.63 ± 0.09 for shell height, 0.38 ± 0.14 and 0.54 ± 0.16 for shell breadth, 0.41 ± 0.17 and 0.56 ± 0.11 for hinge length, 0.53 ± 0.11 and 0.68 ± 0.08 for body weight, 0.35 ± 0.07 and 0.55 ± 0.08 for tissue weight and 0.67 ± 0.10 and 0.75 ± 0.16 for SW. All heritability estimates were statistically significant (P<0.05). According to these results, the mass selection procedure is suggested for the breeding of P. martensii.