Data from: Genome of an iconic Australian bird: High-quality assembly and linkage map of the superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus)

The superb fairy-wren, Malurus cyaneus, is one of the most iconic
Australian passerine species. This species belongs to an endemic
Australasian clade, Meliphagides, which diversified early in the evolution
of the oscine passerines. Today, the oscine passer- ines comprise almost
half of all avian species diversity. Despite the rapid increase of
available bird genome assemblies, this part of the avian tree has not yet
been repre- sented by a high-quality reference. To rectify that, we
present the first high-quality genome assembly of a Meliphagides
representative: the superb fairy-wren. We com- bined Illumina shotgun and
mate-pair sequences, PacBio long-reads, and a genetic linkage map from an
intensively sampled pedigree of a wild population to gener- ate this
genome assembly. Of the final assembled 1.07-Gb genome, 975 Mb (90.4%) was
anchored onto 25 pseudochromosomes resulting in a final superscaffold N50
of 68.11 Mb. This high-quality bird genome assembly is one of only a
handful which is also accompanied by a genetic map and recombination
landscape. In comparison to other pedigree-based bird genetic maps, we
find that the fairy-wren genetic map more closely resembles those of
Taeniopygia guttata and Parus major maps, unlike the Ficedula albicollis
map which more closely resembles that of Gallus gallus. Lastly, we also
provide a predictive gene and repeat annotation of the genome assembly.
This new high-quality, annotated genome assembly will be an invaluable
resource not only regarding the superb fairy-wren species and relatives
but also broadly across the avian tree by providing a novel reference
point for comparative genomic analyses.