The Ostrya virginiana [Betulaceae] genome: a chromosome-level assembly for a foundational understory tree in eastern North America

## File Descriptions The provided archive (Ostrya_Diploid_Data_Release.tar.gz) contains separate directories for Haplotype 1 and Haplotype 2. Each haplotype includes the following standardized bioinformatics files: * Ostrya_hap[1/2]_genome.fasta: The chromosome-level nucleotide sequences for the respective haplotype. * Ostrya_hap[1/2]_annotation.gff3: The coordinate maps for all predicted genes, transcripts, exons, and coding sequences (CDS). * Ostrya_hap[1/2]_proteins.fasta: The translated amino acid sequences for all predicted protein-coding genes. Useful for orthology inference (e.g., OrthoFinder). * Ostrya_hap[1/2]_functional_annotations.tsv: A tab-separated file mapping the predicted gene IDs to their functional annotations, merged from BLAST (UniProt) and InterPro (including GO terms). ## Methods Summary * Assembly: PacBio HiFi reads were assembled using Hifiasm. Contigs were scaffolded into pseudo-chromosomes using YaHS and manually reviewed/corrected using Juicebox. * Annotation: Structural gene prediction was conducted using BRAKER3, utilizing both RNA-seq and protein evidence. * Functional Homology: Predicted protein sequences were searched against the UniProt/Swiss-Prot database using BLASTp, and protein domains/motifs were identified using InterProScan. Results were formatted using the Genome Annotation Generator (GAG).