2025/12/19 by Kimberly M. Ballare, Merly Escalona, Kaleigh Fisher +9 · 1 voice
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Environmental Science · #Insect and Pesticide Research #Plant and animal studies #Environmental DNA in Biodiversity Studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/jhered/esaf109
openalex publication_date 2025/12/19 · openalex created_date 2025/12/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/23
Globally, many bumble bee species are declining in abundance due to diverse factors that include habitat loss, pesticide exposure, disease, and climate change. Some species' populations, however, appear to be relatively stable or even increasing, with reasons for this disparity unclear. Increased genomic resources for different bumble bee species will aid in identifying any genetic causes of these differences. We assembled highly contiguous and complete de novo genomes of two species with different levels of population imperilment: the Sonoran bumble bee (Bombus sonorus Say 1837) and the Vosnesenky or yellow-faced bumble bee (Bombus vosnesenskii Radoszkowski 1862). Here we present genomes for both species assembled with Pacific Biosciences HiFi long reads and Dovetail Omni-C data. These genomes are at the scaffold level, but contain multiple chromosome-length scaffolds, and have similar or higher levels of contiguity of other published chromosome-level Bombus genomes. These genomic resources support conservation planning for both important pollinator species by facilitating future resequencing efforts to understand genetic variation within the species.