2025/04/17 by Erin Voss, Merly Escalona, Oanh Nguyen +9 · 1 voice
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · #Genetic diversity and population structure #Genomics and Phylogenetic Studies #Species Distribution and Climate Change
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/jhered/esaf023
openalex created_date 2025/04/17 · openalex publication_date 2025/04/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Merriam's kangaroo rat (Dipodomys merriami) is a member of a unique family of primarily desert-adapted North American rodents (Heteromyidae). Of the 20 species in the genus, D. merriami is one of the most wide-ranging and ecologically flexible, inhabiting desert scrub, grassland, sagebrush steppe, and juniper-piñon woodland in the southwestern deserts of the United States and Mexico. We present a de novo reference genome for D. merriami generated from PacBio HiFi long-read and Omni-C chromatin proximity sequencing as a part of the California Conservation Genomics Project. The primary pseudo-haplotype assembly comprises 3,110 scaffolds, with a contig N50 of 8.6 Mb, scaffold N50 of 49.1 Mb, and a total length of 3.57 Gb. Further, a BUSCO completeness score of 97.8% suggests that the assembly is highly complete. This reference genome will serve as a resource for future studies of Dipodomys conservation genomics, desert adaptation, and phylogeography.