Draft genome of chafer beetle Holotrichia diomphalia

Beetles
in the genus Holotrichia, commonly known as the chafer beetles or white
grubs, have their larval stage live under the soil feeding on plant roots.
These herbivores have now become one of the major agricultural pests worldwide.
Despite their importance, no genomic resources are currently available for the
beetle genus Holotrichia. Here, we sequenced and assembled the genome of
the chafer beetle Holotrichia diomphalia that is distributed in
Asia and feeds on the soybean root. The assembled genome size of H.
diomphalia is ~1.4 Gb with high continuity (scaffold N50 = 28 kb) and high
BUSCO completeness at 92.3 %. A total of 30,873 protein-coding genes were annotated, and the developmental Hox and
ParaHox genes, hormonal sesquiterpenoid pathway genes, and microRNAs were
analysed. The chafer beetle H. diomphalia genome presented here provides
the first available genomic resource for understanding the biology and
evolution of this ecologically important group of insects.