ERGA-BGE reference genome of Gambusia holbrooki, a globally invasive freshwater fish

List of Authors

  1. Bonnie Fraser
    ,  
  2. Clelia Gasparini
    ,  
  3. Francesco Santi
    ,  
  4. Astrid Böhne ,  
  5. Rita Monteiro ,  
  6. Thomas Marcussen ,  
  7. Rebekah A. Oomen ,  
  8. Torsten H. Struck ,  
  9. Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Management, Samples and Laboratory Team
    ,  
  10. Wellcome Sanger Institute Scientific Operations: Sequencing Operations
    ,  
  11. Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Core Informatics Team
    ,  
  12. Amy Denton
    ,  
  13. Caroline Howard ,  
  14. Kerstin Howe
    ,  
  15. Mark Blaxter
    ,  
  16. Shane McCarthy
    ,  
  17. Jonathan M.D. Wood
    ,  
  18. Fergal Martin
    ,  
  19. Swati Sinha ,  
  20. Leanne Haggerty ,  
  21. Chiara Bortoluzzi
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Abstract

The Gambusia holbrooki (eastern mosquitofish) reference genome will offer a crucial resource for understanding the evolution and adaptation of invasive freshwater fish species. The genome of G. holbrooki was assembled into two haplotypes through a phased assembly approach; however, only the primary haplotype was designated as the reference genome for annotation and downstream analyses. The entirety of the genome sequence was assembled into 24 contiguous chromosomal pseudomolecules and 1 mitochondrial genome. This chromosome-level assembly encompasses 0.67 Gb, composed of 421 contigs and 318 scaffolds, with contig and scaffold N50 values of 15.9 Mb and 29.6 Mb, respectively.

Corresponding author
Chiara Bortoluzzi
0000-0001-6589-6635
Grant information

Biodiversity Genomics Europe (Grant no. 101059492) is funded by Horizon Europe under the Biodiversity, Circular Economy and Environment call (REA.B.3); co-funded by the Swiss State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) under contract numbers 22.00173 and 24.00054; and by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy’s Horizon Europe Guarantee Scheme.

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Copyright
© 2026 Bonnie Fraser (Co-Author); Clelia Gasparini (Co-Author); Francesco Santi (Co-Author); Astrid Böhne (Co-Author); Rita Monteiro (Co-Author); Thomas Marcussen (Co-Author); Rebekah A. Oomen (Co-Author); Torsten H. Struck (Co-Author); Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Management, Samples and Laboratory Team (Co-Author); Wellcome Sanger Institute Scientific Operations: Sequencing Operations (Co-Author); Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Core Informatics Team (Co-Author); Amy Denton (Co-Author); Caroline Howard (Co-Author); Kerstin Howe (Co-Author); Mark Blaxter (Co-Author); Shane McCarthy (Co-Author); Jonathan M.D. Wood (Co-Author); Fergal Martin (Co-Author); Swati Sinha (Co-Author); Leanne Haggerty (Co-Author); Chiara Bortoluzzi (Corresponding Author, Co-Author) Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

First version published
Latest version published
Revised

Amendment

In this revised version, we addressed all reviewers comments. In particular, we clarified the reason behind the low BUSCO completeness score of the genome annotation, as pointed out by both reviewers. We also provided more context in the introduction, by clarifying the relevance of this genome to the comparative genomics community as it adds up to the growing number of genomes from the Poeciliidae family.

Comments

Authors & roles

Bonnie Fraser

Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, EX4 4SB, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Investigation, Resources, Writing – Original Draft Preparation, Writing – Review & Editing

Clelia Gasparini

Department of Biology, Via U. Bassi, University of Padova, Padova, 58/B, Italy

Roles
Co-Author, Investigation, Resources, Writing – Review & Editing

Francesco Santi

Department of Biology, Via U. Bassi, University of Padova, Padova, 58/B, Italy

Roles
Co-Author, Investigation, Resources, Writing – Review & Editing

Astrid Böhne

Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, Museum Koenig Bonn, Bonn, 53113, Germany

Roles
Co-Author, Methodology, Project Administration, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing
0000-0002-1284-3115

Rita Monteiro

Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change, Museum Koenig Bonn, Bonn, 53113, Germany

Roles
Co-Author, Methodology, Project Administration, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing
0000-0003-1374-4474

Thomas Marcussen

Natural History Museum, P.O. Box 1172, Blindern, University of Oslo, Oslo, 0318, Norway

Centre for Ecological & Evolutionary Synthesis, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Roles
Co-Author, Methodology, Project Administration, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing
0000-0002-1960-9508

Rebekah A. Oomen

Natural History Museum, P.O. Box 1172, Blindern, University of Oslo, Oslo, 0318, Norway

Centre for Ecological & Evolutionary Synthesis, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway

Department of Biological Sciences, University of New Brunswick Saint John, Saint John, Canada

Tjärnö Marine Laboratory, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

Centre for Coastal Research, University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway

Roles
Co-Author, Methodology, Project Administration, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing
0000-0002-2094-5592

Torsten H. Struck

Natural History Museum, P.O. Box 1172, Blindern, University of Oslo, Oslo, 0318, Norway

Roles
Co-Author, Methodology, Project Administration, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing
0000-0003-3280-6239

Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Management, Samples and Laboratory Team

Roles
Co-Author

Wellcome Sanger Institute Scientific Operations: Sequencing Operations

Roles
Co-Author

Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Core Informatics Team

Roles
Co-Author

Amy Denton

Tree of Life, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Investigation, Writing – Review & Editing

Caroline Howard

Tree of Life, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Investigation, Writing – Review & Editing
0000-0003-1739-6569

Kerstin Howe

Tree of Life, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing

Mark Blaxter

Tree of Life, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Supervision, Writing – Review & Editing

Shane McCarthy

Tree of Life, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing

Jonathan M.D. Wood

Tree of Life, Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing

Fergal Martin

Wellcome Genome Campus, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing

Swati Sinha

Wellcome Genome Campus, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing
0000-0001-6718-0315

Leanne Haggerty

Wellcome Genome Campus, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, European Bioinformatics Institute, Hinxton, UK

Roles
Co-Author, Data Curation, Formal Analysis, Writing – Review & Editing
0000-0001-8843-3596

Chiara Bortoluzzi

SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Amphipôle, Quartier UNIL-Sorge, Lausanne, 1015, Switzerland

Roles
Corresponding Author, Co-Author, Visualization, Writing – Review & Editing
0000-0001-6589-6635

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