Farming Pacific white shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) is one of the most important aquaculture industries around the world with China the biggest producer. To date however, this industry relies largely on unimproved stocks. This project represents a step towards genetic improvement of P. vannamei through family selection in China. It examines genetic diversity and relatedness among domesticated culture lines generating information used for producing a base population with broad genetic variation. Subsequent quantitative genetic analyses have shown that growth and several key reproductive traits can theoretically, be exploited via selection in future breed improvement program.