Sperm under the microscope: how to interpret boar sperm morphology when inspecting semen samples in the AI laboratory

摘要

An accurate prediction of the fertilising ability of sperm in boar semen is of great economic importance to breeding herds practising artificial insemination (AI). At the moment, unfortunately, the classical methods for evaluating sperm are poor at predicting fertility because they detect only the lowest-quality samples. But there is still a good case for carrying out routine evaluations of semen after collection while new and better techniques are being developed. Measurements of the concentrationof sperm cells, their progressive motility, the percentage of viable cells and their structure or morphology build up to a valuable analysis that allows samples with markedly poor quality to be detected and discarded.