High-quality genome of a model butterfly species in the areas of phenotypic plasticity and plant-insect coevolutionary interactions. A combination of 10x technology, 3kb mate-pair libraries and linkage mapping was used to assemble the genome.. Chromosome level assembly of the comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album)

The comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album, Nymphalidae, Lepidoptera) is a model insect species, most notably in the study of phenotypic plasticity and plant-insect coevolutionary interactions. The genome assembled corresponds to a Swedish comma using 10X sequencing, scaffolding with matepair data, genome polishing, and assignment to linkage groups using a high-density linkage map. The resulting genome is 373 Mb in size, with a scaffold N50 of 11.7Mb and contig N50 of 11,2Mb. The genome contained 90.1% of single-copy Lepidopteran orthologs in a BUSCO analysis of 5286 genes. The quality of the chromosomal assembly was assessed via synteny with Melitaea cinxia genome. The resulting annotated, chromosome-level genome will provide an important resource for investigating coevolutionary dynamics and comparative analyses in Lepidoptera.