中文摘要：

在人类利用自然和改造自然的同时，与人类生活密切相关的动植物也经历着自然进化、人工驯化和人工选育的过程，后者使得这些动植物在生长速度、产量和抗病、抗逆性等方面获得明显的改良。选择育种涉及多门学科，主要包括细胞遗传学、群体遗传学、数量遗传学、分子遗传学，生物统计学、育种学等；

英文摘要：

Oyster is one of the commercially important shellfish species in the world, and oyster cultivation has been one of the most prevalent shellfish aquaculture industries. Selective breeding researches and programs for several commercial oyster species are briefly reviewed and the progress made from these programs is summarized in this paper. Particularly, the achievement of genetic improvement for growth, yield and disease resistance in some economically important oysters （the Pacific oyster, American oyster, European oyster and Sydney rock oyster et al. ） is outlined accordingly here. So far, some fast growth lines and disease resistant strains have already been created. Two strategies, mass selection or family selection, were employed in these selective researches and programs. Both of them have been proved effective and fruitful. The estimations of heritability for live weight and whole size were in the range of 0.25 - 0.69 and of 0.2 - 0.5, respectively. All these efforts and results clearly showed that the regular breeding theories and techniques were applicable to oysters. Hopefully, the developments of regular breeding technology and that of molecular biology technology are expected to create a new era for oyster breeding science and practices in the future.