Genomes of the willow-galling sawflies Euura lappo and Eupontania aestiva (Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae): a resource for research on ecological speciation, adaptation, and gall induction

Craig Michell, Saskia Wutke, Manuel Aranda, Tommi Nyman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

5 Scopus citations

Abstract

Abstract Hymenoptera are a hyperdiverse insect order represented by over 153,000 different species. As many hymenopteran species perform various crucial roles for our environment, such as pollination, herbivory, and parasitism, they are of high economic and ecological importance. There are 99 hymenopteran genomes in the NCBI database, yet only five are representative of the paraphyletic suborder Symphyta (sawflies, woodwasps, and horntails), while the rest represent the suborder Apocrita (bees, wasps, and ants). Here, using a combination of 10X Genomics linked-read sequencing, Oxford Nanopore long-read technology, and Illumina short-read data, we assembled the genomes of two willow-galling sawflies (Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae: Nematinae: Euurina): the bud-galling species Euura lappo and the leaf-galling species Eupontania aestiva. The final assembly for E. lappo is 259.85 Mbp in size, with a contig N50 of 209.0 kbp and a BUSCO score of 93.5%. The E. aestiva genome is 222.23 Mbp in size, with a contig N50 of 49.7 kbp and an 90.2% complete BUSCO score. De novo annotation of repetitive elements showed that 27.45% of the genome was composed of repetitive elements in E. lappo and 16.89% in E. aestiva, which is a marked increase compared to previously published hymenopteran genomes. The genomes presented here provide a resource for inferring phylogenetic relationships among basal hymenopterans, comparative studies on host-related genomic adaptation in plant-feeding insects, and research on the mechanisms of plant manipulation by gall-inducing insects.
Original languageEnglish (US)
JournalG3 Genes|Genomes|Genetics
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 31 2021

Bibliographical note

KAUST Repository Item: Exported on 2021-04-05
Acknowledgements: This research was funded by the Academy of Finland (project 294466 to TN) and by baseline funding from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (to MA).

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Medicine

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