(Swine and Striped Bass)

301-504-9020

 

Analysis and modification of sperm physiological characteristics to improve methods of non-frozen and frozen sperm storage.

 

Accomplishments

Discovered that the correlation between estimated breeding values for fresh percent viable and thawed percent viable was high; importantly no significant correlations were found between estimated breeding values of semen traits with either weight or backfat at 154 days of age. The importance of this work is that 1) sperm cryosurvival is an ideal candidate for marker assisted selection or selection for favorable alleles and 2) freezability could be improved through genetic selection without negative impact on growth and backfat thickness.