A latitudinal gradient of reference genomes

Global inequality rooted in legacies of colonialism and uneven development can lead to systematic biases in scientific knowledge. In ecology and evolutionary biology, findings, funding, and research effort are disproportionately concentrated at high latitudes, while biological diversity is concentrated at low latitudes. This discrepancy may have a particular influence in fields like phylogeography, molecular ecology, and conservation genetics, where the rise of genomics has increased the cost and technical expertise required to apply state-of-the-art methods. Here, we ask whether a fundamental biogeographic pattern – the latitudinal gradient of species richness in tetrapods – is reflected in available reference genomes, an important data resource for various applications of molecular tools for biodiversity research and conservation. We also ask whether sequencing approaches differ between the Global South and Global North, reviewing the last five years of conservation genetics rese..., We used the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Datasets command-line tools v.16.19.0 (O’Leary et al. 2024) to download taxonomy metadata for the subset of species with an assembled reference genome in the following taxa: birds (Class: Aves), mammals (Class: Mammalia), squamates (Order: Squamata), amphibians (Class: Amphibia), turtles (Order: Testudines), crocodilians (Order: Crocodilia) and tuataras (Order: Rhynchocephalia). We selected these groups—together comprising extant tetrapods—to provide a snapshot of animal diversity in relatively well-studied clades with different ecologies and evolutionary histories, while restricting the total dataset to a computationally manageable size. From this initial list we retained species with an exact match to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility’s (GBIF) Backbone Taxonomy using rgbif v.3.8.0 (Chamberlain et al. 2024) and downloaded all observations of each backed by georeferenced voucher specimens in natural history muse..., , # Data from: A latitudinal gradient of reference genomes

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.2v6wwpzxh](10.5061/dryad.2v6wwpzxh)

## Description of the data and file structure

Linck and Cadena 2024 *Mol. Ecol.* obtained two types of data: 1) metadata on published tetrapod reference genomes from NCBI's Genome Browser; and 2) georeferenced occurrence data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Data were aggregated using the NCBI Datasets command-line tools v.16.19.0 and rgbif v.3.8.0. GBIF data are used in accordance with the organization's Data user agreement ([https://www.gbif.org/terms/data-user](https://www.gbif.org/terms/data-user))

### GBIF Data

The georeferenced occurrence data used in the study and necessary to knit `01_analysis.Rmd` are available directly from GBIF via dedicated DOIs and landing pages. These downloads are: [https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.59eyey](https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.59eyey) (producing `0013380-240626123714530.zip`); [https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.vybgce...,