Hybrid Formica aquilonia × F. polyctena genome

Formica red wood ants are a keystone species of boreal forest ecosystems and an emerging model system in the study of speciation and hybridization. Here we performed a standard DNA extraction from a single, field-collected Formica aquilonia × Formica polyctena haploid male and assembled its genome using ~60× of PacBio long reads. After polishing and contaminant removal, the final assembly was 272 Mb (4,687 contigs, N50 = 1.16 Mb). Our reference genome has been scaffolded using the pseudo-chromosomal assembly of a related species, F. selysi, and it contains 98.5% of the core Hymenoptera BUSCOs. Around one third of the genome consists of repeats, and 17,426 gene models were annotated using both protein and RNAseq data (97.4% completeness). This resource paves the way to genomic studies of admixture in natural populations, along with comparative genomic approaches in Formica wood ants.