Variance Component Decomposition for Growth Traits of the Bay Scallop (Argopecten irradians irradians)

The bay scallop ( Argopecten irradians ) is one of the most important shellfish species in China. Since their introduction into China, only mass selection has been used breeding. With its gradual expansion and shortage mate selection, population homozygosity increased, fitness decreased. To investigate effects inbreeding provide reference for improving breeding strategies mating management, variance components growth traits were decomposed with genomic relationship matrices. results indicated that genetic variations shell height length mainly accounted by additive effects. variation width was caused dominance or dominance-by-dominance epistasis. body weight dominance. No significant directional dominances detected all traits. Cross-validation prediction showed including insignificant model not necessary, we suggest should be optimized both likelihood ratio tests cross-validation before utilization practice.