Biodiversity Genomes

We present the complete genome sequences of 87 species of hawks from 39 genera. Illumina sequencing was performed on genetic material from single individuals. The reads were assembled using ade novo method followed by a finishing step. The raw and assembled data are publicly available via Genbank.

Introduction

Hawks (Accipitriformes) include 280 extant species in 74 genera (Lepage, Vaidya, and Guralnick 2014). We present the assembled genome sequences from 87 extant species of hawks. Tissue or toepad samples were obtained from vouchered museum specimens. More detailed information about the specimen used for each species can be found in the Biosample linked to each genome assembly in Genbank.

Methods

DNA extraction was performed using the Qiagen DNAeasy genomic extraction kit using the standard protocol. A paired-end sequencing library was constructed using the Illumina TruSeq kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The library was sequenced on an Illumina Hi-Seq platform in paired-end, 2 × 150 bp format. The resulting fastq files were trimmed of adapter/primer sequence and low-quality regions with Trimmomatic v0.33 (Bolger, Lohse, and Usadel 2014). The trimmed sequence was assembled by SPAdes v2.5 (Bankevich et al. 2012) followed by a finishing step using Zanfona (Kieras, O’Neill, and Pirro 2021).

Results and Data Availability

All data, including raw reads and assembled genome sequence, is available via Genbank.

Funding

Funding was provided by Iridian Genomes, grant# IRGEN_RG_2021-1345 Genomic Studies of Eukaryotic Taxa. We also wish to thank the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University (Nathan H. Rice), University of Kansas Biodiversity Institute (Mark B. Robbins), Biodiversity Research and Teaching Collections, Texas A&M University (Gary Voelker and Heather Prestridge), Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (Allison J. Shultz and Kimball L. Garrett), Museum of Comparative Zoology (Jeremiah Trimble and Emily Blank), Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology (Rene Corado), Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science (Steve Cardiff), Museum of Southwestern Biology (Chris Witt and Andrew Johnson).

References