Annotated genome of Nucella lapillus (Atlantic dog whelk) collected from Nahant, MA in May 2024

Nucella lapillus has been a focal organism of ecological and evolutionary studies on rocky shores for decades. As a direct developer, this species has limited dispersal but its broad geographic range makes it ideal for studies of population structure, isolation by distance, and selection across different environmental gradients. A fully annotated genome was generated using Oxford Nanopore sequencing at ~37x coverage, resulting in a genome assembly of 2.32 Gbp. Genomic resources for mollusks are relatively limited compared to other phyla and this new genome will enhance our understanding of genomic variation in mollusks and studies seeking to link genomic variation with organismal performance and community-level processes under various dimensions of environmental change.