International Journal of Marine Science, 2025, Vol.15, No.5, 268-276 http://www.aquapublisher.com/index.php/ijms 269 relationships among these characters, and shell length and width were found to be highly positively correlated with body weight, which are thus good indicators of selective breeding. These are the fundamental measurements for genetic evaluation and improvement programs in both pure lines and hybrids (Huang et al., 2018; Kho et al., 2021; 2023) (Figure 1). Figure 1 Logarithm of odds (LOD) profile of growth-related traits: (A) body weight, (B) shell length, and (C) shell width of abalone at different ages (Adapted from Kho et al., 2023) 2.2 Factors influencing growth rate Abalone growth rate is under genetic, environmental, nutritional, and managerial control. Genetic effects are of greatest significance, with moderate to high heritability for valuable growth traits, indicating that genetic improvement of growth through selective breeding is feasible. Environmental effects of rearing mode, water temperature, and site conditions have large influences on growth, and genotype-by-environment interactions can cause reranking of phenotypes in different systems of culture. Nutrition, in terms of feed intake and feed conversion, is highly correlated with growth and optimizing them can achieve optimum performance. Stocking density and health protocols are also part of the management practices that affect growth outcomes (Zhou et al., 2022; Van Nguyen et al., 2023).
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