De Novo Assembly of a High-Quality Reference Genome for the Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris)

The Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris) is a small songbird that exhibits remarkable geographic variation in appearance and habitat across an expansive distribution. While E. alpestris has been the focus of many ecological and evolutionary studies, we still lack a highly contiguous genome assembly fo...

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Main Authors: Nicholas A. Mason, Paulo Pulgarin, Carlos Daniel Cadena, Irby J. Lovette
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Oxford University Press 2020-02-01
Series:G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics
Subjects:
Online Access:http://g3journal.org/lookup/doi/10.1534/g3.119.400846
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author Nicholas A. Mason
Paulo Pulgarin
Carlos Daniel Cadena
Irby J. Lovette
author_facet Nicholas A. Mason
Paulo Pulgarin
Carlos Daniel Cadena
Irby J. Lovette
author_sort Nicholas A. Mason
collection DOAJ
description The Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris) is a small songbird that exhibits remarkable geographic variation in appearance and habitat across an expansive distribution. While E. alpestris has been the focus of many ecological and evolutionary studies, we still lack a highly contiguous genome assembly for the Horned Lark and related taxa (Alaudidae). Here, we present CLO_EAlp_1.0, a highly contiguous assembly for E. alpestris generated from a blood sample of a wild, male bird captured in the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of Colombia. By combining short-insert and mate-pair libraries with the ALLPATHS-LG genome assembly pipeline, we generated a 1.04 Gb assembly comprised of 2713 scaffolds, with a largest scaffold size of 31.81 Mb, a scaffold N50 of 9.42 Mb, and a scaffold L50 of 30. These scaffolds were assembled from 23685 contigs, with a largest contig size of 1.69 Mb, a contig N50 of 193.81 kb, and a contig L50 of 1429. Our assembly pipeline also produced a single mitochondrial DNA contig of 14.00 kb. After polishing the genome, we identified 94.5% of single-copy gene orthologs from an Aves data set and 97.7% of single-copy gene orthologs from a vertebrata data set, which further demonstrates the high quality of our assembly. We anticipate that this genomic resource will be useful to the broader ornithological community and those interested in studying the evolutionary history and ecological interactions of larks, which comprise a widespread, yet understudied lineage of songbirds.
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spelling doaj.art-223e5f5b95bb4a3db34eb5b0952ea7db2022-12-21T22:01:15ZengOxford University PressG3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics2160-18362020-02-0110247547810.1534/g3.119.4008466De Novo Assembly of a High-Quality Reference Genome for the Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris)Nicholas A. MasonPaulo PulgarinCarlos Daniel CadenaIrby J. LovetteThe Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris) is a small songbird that exhibits remarkable geographic variation in appearance and habitat across an expansive distribution. While E. alpestris has been the focus of many ecological and evolutionary studies, we still lack a highly contiguous genome assembly for the Horned Lark and related taxa (Alaudidae). Here, we present CLO_EAlp_1.0, a highly contiguous assembly for E. alpestris generated from a blood sample of a wild, male bird captured in the Altiplano Cundiboyacense of Colombia. By combining short-insert and mate-pair libraries with the ALLPATHS-LG genome assembly pipeline, we generated a 1.04 Gb assembly comprised of 2713 scaffolds, with a largest scaffold size of 31.81 Mb, a scaffold N50 of 9.42 Mb, and a scaffold L50 of 30. These scaffolds were assembled from 23685 contigs, with a largest contig size of 1.69 Mb, a contig N50 of 193.81 kb, and a contig L50 of 1429. Our assembly pipeline also produced a single mitochondrial DNA contig of 14.00 kb. After polishing the genome, we identified 94.5% of single-copy gene orthologs from an Aves data set and 97.7% of single-copy gene orthologs from a vertebrata data set, which further demonstrates the high quality of our assembly. We anticipate that this genomic resource will be useful to the broader ornithological community and those interested in studying the evolutionary history and ecological interactions of larks, which comprise a widespread, yet understudied lineage of songbirds.http://g3journal.org/lookup/doi/10.1534/g3.119.400846alaudidaeallpaths-lgeremophila alpestrisgenome assemblyhorned lark
spellingShingle Nicholas A. Mason
Paulo Pulgarin
Carlos Daniel Cadena
Irby J. Lovette
De Novo Assembly of a High-Quality Reference Genome for the Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris)
G3: Genes, Genomes, Genetics
alaudidae
allpaths-lg
eremophila alpestris
genome assembly
horned lark
title De Novo Assembly of a High-Quality Reference Genome for the Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris)
title_full De Novo Assembly of a High-Quality Reference Genome for the Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris)
title_fullStr De Novo Assembly of a High-Quality Reference Genome for the Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris)
title_full_unstemmed De Novo Assembly of a High-Quality Reference Genome for the Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris)
title_short De Novo Assembly of a High-Quality Reference Genome for the Horned Lark (Eremophila alpestris)
title_sort de novo assembly of a high quality reference genome for the horned lark eremophila alpestris
topic alaudidae
allpaths-lg
eremophila alpestris
genome assembly
horned lark
url http://g3journal.org/lookup/doi/10.1534/g3.119.400846
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