Publikationsdatum:
2020-06-15
Beschreibung:
Eukaryotic organisms vary widely in genome size and much of this variation can be explained by differences in the abundance of repetitive elements. However, the phylogenetic distributions and turnover rates of repetitive elements are largely unknown, particularly for species with large genomes. We therefore used de novo repeat identification based on low coverage whole-genome sequencing to characterize the repeatomes of six species of gomphocerine grasshoppers, an insect clade characterized by unusually large and variable genome sizes. Genome sizes of the six species ranged from 8.4 to 14.0 pg DNA per haploid genome and thus include the second largest insect genome documented so far (with the largest being another acridid grasshopper). Estimated repeat content ranged from 79% to 96% and was strongly correlated with genome size. Averaged over species, these grasshopper repeatomes comprised significant amounts of DNA transposons (24%), LINE elements (21%), helitrons (13%), LTR retrotransposons (12%), and satellite DNA (8.5%). The contribution of satellite DNA was particularly variable (ranging from
Digitale ISSN:
1759-6653
Thema:
Biologie
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