A chromosome-level genome assembly ofDrosophila madeirensis, a fruit fly species endemic to the island of Madeira

Abstract

Drosophila subobscurais distributed across Europe, the Near East, and the Americas, while its sister species,D. madeirensis, is endemic to the island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean.D. subobscurais known for its strict light-dependence in mating and its unique courtship displays, including nuptial gift giving.D. subobscurahas also attracted the interest of researchers because of its abundant variations in chromosomal polymorphisms correlated to the latitude and season, which have been used as a tool to track global climate warming. AlthoughD. madeirensiscan be an important resource for understanding the evolutionary underpinning of these genetic characteristics ofD. subobscura, little work has been done on the biology of this species. Here, we used a HiFi long-read sequencing dataset to produce ade novogenome assembly forD. madeirensis. This assembly comprises a total of 111 contigs spanning 135.5 Mb, and has an N50 of 24.2 Mb and a BUSCO completeness score of 98.6%. Each of the six chromosomes ofD. madeirensisconsisted of a single contig. Breakpoints of the chromosomal inversions betweenD. subobscuraandD. madeirensiswere characterized using this genome assembly, updating some of the previously identified locations.