Assembly and functional annotation of the Crematogaster levior genome

The success of social insects is largely intertwined with their highly advanced chemical communication system that facilitates the recognition and discrimination of species and nest-mates, recruitment, and division of labour. Hydrocarbons, which cover the cuticle of insects, not only serve as waterproofing agent but also constitute a major component of this communication system. Two cryptic Crematogaster species, which share their nest with Camponotus ants, show striking diversity in their cuticular hydrocarbon (CHC) profile. This mutualistic system therefore offers the great opportunity to study the genetic basis of CHC divergence between sister species. Here we present the annotated draft genome for one of the two sister species, Crematogaster levior A. By combining the three most commonly used sequencing techniques – Illumina, PacBio and Oxford Nanopore – we constructed the most contiguous de novo ant genome assembly so far. We show that even a rather low coverage of long reads can add significantly to overall genome contiguity. We furthermore annotated desaturase and elongase genes, which play a role in CHC biosynthesis and found a higher number of desaturases than in other Hymenoptera, which may reflect the high diversity observed in C. levior CHC profiles