Montipora capitata Genome sequencing

Corals comprise a biomineralizing cnidarian, dinoflagellate algal symbionts, and associated microbiome ofprokaryotes and viruses. Ongoing efforts to conserve coral reefs by identifying the major stress responsepathways and thereby laying the foundation to select resistant genotypes rely on a robust genomic foundation.Here we generated and analyzed a high quality long-read based ~886 Mbp nuclear genome assembly andtranscriptome data from the dominant rice coral, Montipora capitata from Hawai'i. Our work provides insightsinto the architecture of coral genomes and shows how they differ in size and gene inventory, putatively due topopulation size variation. We describe a recent example of foreign gene acquisition via a bacterial genetransfer agent and illustrate the major pathways of stress response that can be used to predict regulatorycomponents of the transcriptional networks in M. capitata. These genomic resources provide insights into theadaptive potential of these sessile, long-lived species in both natural and human influenced environments andfacilitate functional and population genomic studies aimed at Hawaiian reef restoration and conservation.