Latrodectus hesperus Genome sequencing and assembly

The goal of the project is to provide a chromosomal-level genome assembly of the western black widow spider (Latrodectus hesperus). The black widow spider inhabits the western and southwestern arid regions of the United States. With the rapid urbanization of these areas, it possesses several life history characteristics that enable it to thrive and reach high densities within cities. Thus, it is considered an urban pest with unique interests of medical relevance due to its highly toxic venom, as well as of biomed and biotech relevance due its incredibly high-tensile silk strength. While our understanding of venom gene evolution for health concerns is one priority, these silk genes are of particular complexity as a result of highly repetitive sequences and recent duplications, which make distinguishing single copy and unique paralogues very difficult. While previous studies have attempted to capture these gene sequences from transcriptomic and partial genome sequencing, our chromosomal-level assembly should provide a high-coverage scaffold with which to identify unique venom and silk gene families of duplications. Lastly, arachnids and spiders specifically are vastly understudied from a phylogenomic perspective. Thus, while our gene identification will identify unique genes with respect to black widow spider evolutionary ecology, we anticipate almost anything that we discover to be very helpful from a tree-of-life perspective in filling taxonomic gaps.