Stipa capillata Genome sequencing

The eurasian plant Stipa capillata is the most widespread species within feather grasses, growing on sandy to loamy, nutrient poor soils in the dry grasslands of Eurasia. Currently, this species is increasingly attracting the interest of conservation biologists due to its large distribution range, common occurrence in the Eurasian steppes and pseudosteppes, a limited number of refugia in Europe and both great morphological and genetic variability within its range. In recent years, large-scale molecular data began to appear for Stipa: de novo transcriptome assemblies of S. purpurea, S. grandis and S. lagascae, whole chloroplast genomes. In addition, nucleolar organising regions were sequenced for several Stipa taxa. Nevertheless, no complete or draft genome assembly currently exists for any Stipa species. In order to fill this gap, we provide the first draft genome of feather grasses using PacBio single-molecule long-read sequencing.