Abstract
BackgroundThe relict gull (Larus relictus), was classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and is a first-class national protected bird in China. Genomic resources for L. relictus are lacking, which limits the study of its evolution and its conservation.ResultsIn this study, based on the Illumina and PacBio sequencing platforms, we successfully assembled the genome of L. relictus, one of the few known reference genomes in genus Larus. The size of the final assembled genome was 1.21 Gb, with a contig N50 of 8.11 Mb. A total of 18,454 genes were predicted from the assembly results, with 16,967 (91.94%) of these genes annotated. The genome contained 92.52 Mb of repeat sequence, accounting for 7.63% of the assembly. A phylogenetic tree was constructed using 4902 single-copy orthologous genes, which showed L. relictus had closest relative of L. smithsonianus, with divergence time of 14.7 Mya estimated between of them. PSMC analyses indicated that L. relictus had been undergoing a long-term population decline during 0.01-0.1 Mya with a small effective population size fom 8800 to 2200 individuals.ConclusionsThis genome will be a valuable genomic resource for a range of genomic and conservation studies of L. relictus and will help to establish a foundation for further studies investigating whether the breeding population is a complex population. As the species is threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation, actions to protect L. relictus are suggested to alleviate the fragmentation of breeding populations.
Highlights
The relict gull (Larus relictus), was classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and is a first-class national protected bird in China
A 1.21 Gb assembly with a contig N50 of approximately 8.11 Mb was obtained for L. relictus, with a GC content of approximately 43.11%
4555 (92.7%) of the 4915 highly conserved Aves orthologues from BUSCO v3.0.2 were identified in the assembly (Table S7). These results show that the assembled L. relictus genome sequence was complete and had a low error rate
Summary
The relict gull (Larus relictus), was classified as vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and is a first-class national protected bird in China. The relict gull (Larus relictus) (Charadriiformes, Laridae, Larus), a middle-sized gull with a black-coloured head, had been known for nearly 50 years before it was regarded as a unique species [1]. It is classified as vulnerable (VU) on the IUCN Red List and is a first-class national protected bird in China. No genome has been published for L. relictus which limits our understanding about the molecular mechanisms of evolutionary and genetic processes
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