Long-read genome assembly of the Japanese parasitic waspCopidosoma floridanum(Hymenoptera: Encyrtidae)

Abstract

AbstractCopidosoma floridanumis a cosmopolitan species and an egg-larval parasitoid of the Plusiine moth.C. floridanumhas a unique development mode called polyembryony, in which thousands of genetically identical embryos are produced from a single egg. Some embryos develop into sterile soldier larvae, and their developmental patterns differ between the US and JapaneseC. floridanumstrains. Genome sequencing can accelerate our understanding of the molecular bases underlying polyembryony, including the production of soldier castes. However, only the genome sequence of the US strain has been reported. In the present study, we determined the genome sequence of the Japanese strain using Pacific Biosciences high-fidelity reads and generating a highly contiguous assembly (552.7 Mb, N50: 17.9 Mb). Gene prediction and annotation identified 13,886 transcripts derived from 10,786 gene models. Among these, 149 transcripts were not identified in the US strain gene model. Differences in the amino acid sequence of thevasagene were observed between the US and Japanese strains. The genome assemblies constructed in this study will facilitate our understanding of intraspecific variation in the developmental patterns ofC. floridanum.