公牛生育能力被认为是不可或缺的特征，就农业经济学而言，因为它是牛提供小牛作物的成功概念，以及随之而来的泌乳。这确保了奶牛场的可持续性。传统上,公牛的繁殖力没有受到农场管理者的重视，饲养动物只根据表型预测因子进行评估，即,公牛的父亲受孕率和精液参数。随着动物育种分子时代的到来,尝试通过鉴定与性状相关的遗传标记来揭示公牛生育力的遗传复杂性。标记辅助选择（MAS）是一种方法，旨在利用标记的遗传信息并选择重要性状的改良种群。传统上,MAS是使用候选基因方法进行的，用于鉴定与已知具有与性状相关的生理功能的基因相关的标记，但是这种方法具有某些缺点，例如严格的显著性测试标准。现在,随着全基因组数据的可用性，与公牛生育力相关的识别标记和解释方差的数量有所增加。所以,这提供了一个独特的机会，通过基于大量全基因组标记的信息进行选择来重新审视MAS，因此，提高选择的准确性。
Bull fertility is considered an indispensable trait, as far as farm economics is concerned since it is the successful conception in a cow that provides calf crop, along with the ensuing lactation. This ensures sustainability of a dairy farm. Traditionally, bull fertility did not receive much attention by the farm managers and breeding animals were solely evaluated based on phenotypic predictors, namely, sire conception rate and seminal parameters in bull. With the advent of the molecular era in animal breeding, attempts were made to unravel the genetic complexity of bull fertility by the identification of genetic markers related to the trait. Marker-Assisted Selection (MAS) is a methodology that aims at utilizing the genetic information at markers and selecting improved populations for important traits. Traditionally, MAS was pursued using a candidate gene approach for identifying markers related to genes that are already known to have a physiological function related to the trait but this approach had certain shortcomings like stringent criteria for significance testing. Now, with the availability of genome-wide data, the number of markers identified and variance explained in relation to bull fertility has gone up. So, this presents a unique opportunity to revisit MAS by selection based on the information of a large number of genome-wide markers and thus, improving the accuracy of selection.
