Yanlin Wang¹ , Jinni Wu²

1 Tropical Animal Resources Research Center, Hainan Institute of Tropical Agricultural Resources, Sanya, 572025, Hainan, China
2 Aquatic Biology Research Center, Cuixi Academy of Biotechnology, Zhuji, 311800, Zhejiang, China
Author    Correspondence author
International Journal of Marine Science, 2025, Vol. 15, No. 5   doi: 10.5376/ijms.2025.15.0024
Received: 15 Aug., 2025    Accepted: 28 Sep., 2025    Published: 21 Oct., 2025

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Wang Y.L., and Wu J.N., 2025, Genetic variation and genomic selection strategies for growth rate in abalone, International Journal of Marine Science, 15(5): 268-276 (doi: 10.5376/ijms.2025.15.0024)

Abalone (Haliotis spp.), as a high-value marine aquaculture species, has growth rate characteristics that are in direct relation to farm productivity and breeding improvement outcome. The biological basis and genetic variation features of abalone growth rate are systematically reviewed in this study, and the uses and limitations of traditional breeding methods in improving growth performance are discussed in detail. The review focuses on the fundamentals, approaches, and recent advances of genomic selection (GS) technology for enhancing abalone growth rate, as well as on practical case studies, and discusses the integration of GS and traditional breeding. It also discusses key challenges in the implementation of genomic selection, including phenotypic data quality, genotyping cost, model predictive ability, and genetic diversity maintenance. By combining high-throughput genotyping and machine learning, this review recapitulates the recent progress of GS strategies and their implications in increasing breeding efficiency. This review provides theoretical foundation and practical reference for building an efficient, precise, and sustainable modern abalone breeding system, promoting the healthy development of the abalone industry.

Abalone; Growth rate; Genetic variation; Genomic selection; Modern breeding