Most commercial shrimp hatcheries rely
on natural matings to produce larvae (described
by Yano et al. 1988). Advantages of natural mates
over artificial insemination are a greater number
of nauplii produced per spawn and decreased labor
costs. However, the male is unknown and this may
be important information for selective breeding
programs. The male may be identified by DNA
fingerprinting if it is undesirable to use AI (Moore
et al. 1999; Hetzel et al. 2000), but this approach
requires sophisticated procedures and equipment
that typically are unavailable to shrimp farmers.
In the OI breeding program, specific males are
mated with specific females by AI to produce half/
full-sib families for estimation of genetic
parameters, including heritability estimates,
phenotypic and genetic variation, and phenotypic
and genetic correlations. However, spawning
success and the number of nauplii produced