Chromosome-Length Assembly of the Baikal Seal (Pusa sibirica) Genome Reveals a Historically Large Population Prior to Isolation in Lake Baikal.

ABSTRACT: Pusa sibirica, the Baikal seal, is the only extant, exclusively freshwater, pinniped species. The pending issue is, how and when they reached their current habitat-the rift lake Baikal, more than three thousand kilometers away from the Arctic Ocean. To explore the demographic history and genetic diversity of this species, we generated a de novo chromosome-length assembly, and compared it with three closely related marine pinniped species. Multiple whole genome alignment of the four species compared with their karyotypes showed high conservation of chromosomal features, except for three large inversions on chromosome VI. We found the mean heterozygosity of the studied Baikal seal individuals was relatively low (0.61 SNPs/kbp), but comparable to other analyzed pinniped samples. Demogr

SUBMITTER: Yakupova A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10048373 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature