#34 · Genomics

Chromosome-level genomes enable demographic, comparative and sex-chromosome inference

The common thread is the use of chromosome-level or single-assembly genomes as the primary substrate for inference. The Wongai ningaui genome and draft dunnart assembly are used to contrast late Pleistocene demographic histories in two arid-zone marsupials, linking genome-scale data to climatic change. The Aphonopelma marxi genome serves as a chromosome-level reference for comparative genomics across 300 million years of spider evolution. SCINKD identifies candidate sex chromosome linkage groups from a single diploid assembly using k-mer density differences and flags misassembled regions, extending the same resource to assembly validation. What is new is inference drawn from individual or single-assembly data applied to population history, comparative evolution and curation.