Aquaculture currently accounts for approximately half of all seafood produced and is the fastest growing farmed food sector globally. Marine bivalve aquaculture, the farming of oysters, mussels and clams, represents a highly sustainable component of this industry and has major potential for global expansion via increased efficiency, and numbers of, production systems. Artificial spat propagation (i.e. settled juveniles) in hatcheries and selective breeding have the potential to offer rapid and widespread gains for molluscan aquaculture industry. However, bivalves have unique life-histories, genetic and genomic characteristics, which present significant challenges to achieving such genetic improvement. Selection pressures experienced by bivalve larvae and spat in the wild contribute to drive population structure and animal fitness. Similarly, domestication selection is likely to act on hatchery-produced spat, the full implications of which have not been fully explored. In this review, we outline the key features of these taxa and production practices applied in bivalve aquaculture, which have the potential to affect the genetic and phenotypic variability of hatchery-propagated stock. Alongside, we compare artificial and natural processes experienced by bivalves to investigate the possible consequences of hatchery propagation on stock production. In addition, we identify key areas of investigation that need to be prioritized to continue to the advancement of bivalve genetic improvement via selective breeding. The growing accessibility of next-generation sequencing technology and high-powered computational capabilities facilitate the implementation of novel genomic tools in breeding programmes of aquatic species. These emerging techniques represent an exciting opportunity for sustainably expanding the bivalve aquaculture sector.

中文翻译：

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优化孵化场实践以改善海洋双壳类动物的遗传

水产养殖目前约占所有海产品产量的一半，是全球增长最快的养殖食品部门。海洋双壳类水产养殖，即牡蛎、贻贝和蛤蜊的养殖，是该行业高度可持续的组成部分，具有通过提高生产系统的效率和数量实现全球扩张的巨大潜力。孵化场中的人工卵繁殖（即定居幼鱼）和选择性育种有可能为软体动物水产养殖业提供快速和广泛的收益。然而，双壳类动物具有独特的生活史、遗传和基因组特征，这对实现这种遗传改良提出了重大挑战。野外双壳类幼虫和卵所经历的选择压力有助于推动种群结构和动物健康。相似地，驯化选择可能会影响孵化场产生的卵，其全部影响尚未得到充分探索。在这篇综述中，我们概述了这些应用于双壳类水产养殖的分类群和生产实践的关键特征，它们有可能影响孵化场繁殖种群的遗传和表型变异性。此外，我们比较了双壳类动物经历的人工和自然过程，以研究孵化场繁殖对种群生产的可能影响。此外，我们确定了需要优先考虑的关键调查领域，以继续通过选择性育种推进双壳贝类遗传改良。下一代测序技术的日益普及和强大的计算能力促进了新型基因组工具在水生物种育种计划中的实施。这些新兴技术为可持续扩大双壳类水产养殖业提供了令人兴奋的机会。