Bioscience Methods 2025, Vol.16, No.6, 308-316 http://bioscipublisher.com/index.php/bm 308 Case Study Open Access Case Study on the Use of Assisted Reproductive Techniques in Improving Water Buffalo Fertility Xiaoqing Tang Hainan Institute of Biotechnology, Haikou, 570206, Hainan, China Corresponding email: xiaoqing.tang@hibio.org Bioscience Methods, 2025, Vol.16, No.6 doi: 10.5376/bm.2025.16.0030 Received: 13 Nov., 2025 Accepted: 24 Dec., 2025 Published: 13 Dec., 2025 Copyright © 2025 Tang, 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. Preferred citation for this article: Tang X.Q., 2025, Case study on the use of Assisted reproductive techniques in improving water buffalo fertility, Bioscience Methods, 16(6): 308-316 (doi: 10.5376/bm.2025.16.0030) Abstract Water buffaloes play a significant role in livestock production in many regions of Asia, undertaking multiple functions such as dairy production, meat processing, and draft use. However, its reproductive efficiency is relatively low, such as long postnatal intervals and difficulty in identifying estrus, which have long restricted the improvement of production performance and the progress of germplasm improvement. This study systematically reviewed the reproductive biological characteristics of water buffaloes, the limitations of natural reproduction, and analyzed the mechanism of ARTs in improving reproductive performance, including enhancing conception rates, synchronous estrus, and accelerating genetic progression. Through the case analysis of the Indian Buffalo Breeding Center, the artificial insemination promotion project in the Philippines, and the OPU-ET experimental platform in southern China, this study evaluated the effectiveness, advantages, and technical and management challenges faced by ARTs in practical applications. The research results show that although ARTs can significantly improve the reproductive efficiency of water buffaloes and promote the rapid spread of superior genes, its large-scale promotion still relies on cost reduction, farmer training and the construction of a good supporting system. This study aims to reveal the mechanisms by which these techniques improve the reproductive performance of water buffaloes, shorten their reproductive cycles, and promote the expansion of superior populations, and to provide theoretical support and practical references for establishing a scalable and sustainable water buffalo breeding technology system. Keywords Water buffalo; Assisted reproductive technology; Reproductive capacity; Artificial insemination; Embryo transfer 1 Introduction The buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is not a species that has only started to attract attention in recent years. Long ago, it had already been a "jack of all trades" in the hands of farmers in parts of Asia, South America and even Europe - capable of producing milk and meat as well as working in the fields. This kind of animal has a strong adaptability to the environment and is not bad at resisting diseases. It is particularly suitable for two extreme production systems: small-scale family breeding and large-scale livestock farms. Moreover, in terms of nutritional components, its milk fat content and protein content are generally much higher than those of cattle, which is indeed very attractive to the dairy industry (Coman et al., 2024). But then again, the advantages of water buffaloes cannot cover up their shortcomings in reproduction. Compared with cattle, it is indeed a bit of a "backer" in terms of reproduction. For instance, sexual maturity comes slowly and estrus is not obvious. Sometimes a female water buffalo does not "speak" for several months, and the breeders cannot catch the right time to mate. In addition, due to strong seasonality, long calving intervals and slow postpartum recovery, the reproductive efficiency is naturally not high. These problems are also vulnerable to the influence of the environment, nutrition, diseases and breeding methods. Once there are problems, the conception rate drops immediately and the breeding benefits also shrink accordingly (Devkota et al., 2022). Some studies have pointed out that this kind of low fertility not only slows down the population renewal rate, but also affects the sustainable development and economic returns of the entire buffaloe-based livestock system (Nava-Trujillo et al., 2020). To solve this long-standing and difficult problem, it is impossible to just "wait for it to get better on its own". Assisted reproductive technology (ARTs) thus emerged, including artificial insemination (AI), timed artificial
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