Nuclear and mitochondrial genome assemblies of the beetle, Zygogramma bicolorata, a globally important biocontrol agent of invasive weed Parthenium hysterophorus.

Abstract

Implementing a genetic-based approach to achieve the full potential of classical biocontrol programs has been advocated for decades. The availability of genome-level information brings the opportunity to scrutinize the biocontrol traits for their efficacy and evolvability. However, implementation of this advocacy remain limited to few instances. Biocontrol of a globally noxious weed, Parthenium hysterophorus, by the leaf-feeding beetle, Zygogramma bicolorata, has been in place for more than four decades now, with varying levels of success. Towards the first step in provisioning genetic-based improvement to this biocontrol program, we describe the nuclear and mitochondrial assemblies of Z. bicolorata. We assembled the genome from the long-read sequence data, error-corrected with high throughput short-reads and checked for contaminants and sequence duplication to produce a 936 Mb nuclear genome. With 96.5% BUSCO completeness and the LAI index 12.91, we present a reference quality assembly, which appeared to be repeat-rich at 62.7% genome-wide and consists of 29437 protein-coding regions. We detected signature of NUMTs in 80 nuclear positions comprising 13 Kb out of 17.9 Kb mitochondria genome sequence. This genome, along with its annotations, provides a valuable resource to gain further insights into the biocontrol traits of Z. bicolorata in improving the control of the invasive weed Parthenium hysterophorus.