Abstract
Members of genus Martes provide early warning signals about forest ecosystem health and are designated as a Management Indicator Species. As one of the most widespread members in Martes, the sable (Martes zibellina) is a circumboreal small predator found throughout all taiga zoogeographical zones of Eurasia and shows distinct population differentiation and morphological variations. To support further studies on striking local adaptation and population evolution, we present the first sable genome, assembled de novo from an individual originating in the Great Khingan Mountains (China). The assembled genome is 2.42 Gb, consisting of 15,814 scaffolds with a scaffold N50 of 5.20 Mb. Searches for complete Mammalia BUSCO (Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Ortholog) gene groups found that 95.15% of the curated single-copy orthologs were assembled as complete, suggesting a high level of completeness of the genome. We totally predicted 19,413 protein-coding genes, and 0.82 Gb of repeat sequences was annotated. We also detected 1,257 olfactory receptor genes and found more functional olfactory receptor genes in sable than in other Mustelidae species, which provide a possible genetic explanation for the acute sense of smell of the sable for searching the preys under deep snow. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that the ferret (Mustela putorius furo) and sea otter (Enhydra lutris) form a clade that is sister to the sable, which was dated ∼16.4 Ma. Overall, our study provided the first reference genome for research in a broad range of areas including local adaptations, population evolution, conservation, and management for sable.
Highlights
The sable (Martes zibellina) is a circumboreal species and belongs to the genus Martes (Mustelidae, Carnivora)
Because Martes are very sensitive to changes in their habitats, they provide early warning signals about ecosystem health and are designated as a Management Indicator Species in national forests of some regions (Aubry et al 2012)
Understanding the genomic basis of key adaptations, the respective impacts of selection and drift on specific genes, and how these patterns vary across the genome are central to the study of organismal evolution (Autenrieth et al 2018)
Summary
The sable (Martes zibellina) is a circumboreal species and belongs to the genus Martes (Mustelidae, Carnivora). Because the sable has evolved an excellent smelling ability to locate prey under snow (Monakhov 2011), we predict more functional OR genes in the sable than in other Mustelidae species genomes. We provided the first genome assembly of the sable and demonstrated a high level of completeness of the assembly This genome assembly provides valuable genomic resource toward studies of local adaptation, population dynamics, and conservation genomics of this ecologically important species
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