Draft Genome of the Scarab Beetle Oryctes borbonicus on La Reunion Island.

ABSTRACT: Beetles represent the largest insect order and they display extreme morphological, ecological and behavioral diversity, which makes them ideal models for evolutionary studies. Here, we present the draft genome of the scarab beetle Oryctes borbonicus, which has a more basal phylogenetic position than the two previously sequenced pest species Tribolium castaneum and Dendroctonus ponderosae providing the potential for sequence polarization. Oryctes borbonicus is endemic to La Réunion, an island located in the Indian Ocean, and is the host of the nematode Pristionchus pacificus, a well-established model organism for integrative evolutionary biology. At 518 Mb, the O. borbonicus genome is substantially larger and encodes more genes than T. castaneum and D. ponderosae We found that only 25% of t

SUBMITTER: Meyer JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4987105 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature