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The Efficacy of Walk-back Selection and Optimized Parent Selection in the Presence of Unequal Family Distributions
In aquaculture breeding schemes families must often be pooled prior to tagging, however pooled group family survival can be variable. A simulation model was used to test the efficacy of using a walk-back selection type approach combined with optimized parent selection to choose the parents for the next generation from a pool of candidates when there may be an unequal distribution of offspring across the families present. Simulations were completed with equal numbers of offspring from each family, compared with “moderate” and “severely” unequal numbers from each family, with and without the use of walk-back selection. The results showed that when the numbers of offspring from each family are unequal, walk-back selection can be used to add genetic diversity to the pool of selection candidates for optimized parent selection to meet constraints on coancestry between parents while only sacrificing a small amount of genetic progress.
Keywords:
Aquaculture
Simulation
