Turdus rufiventris Genome sequencing and assembly. Turdus rufiventris

The recent advances in genome sequencing technologies represent one of the most important and immediate ways of characterizing the avian biodiversity at the molecular level. We sequenced the genome of the rufous-bellied thrush (Turdus rufiventris), a songbird native to Brazil. We sequenced three shotgun Illumina libraries and three Illumina mate-pair libraries resulting in ~80x physical coverage of the genome. We assembled a high contiguity genome using ABySS. The rufous-bellied thrush (Turdus rufiventris) is a seasonally breeding bird that actively sings during the spring and is relatively silent in the fall, yet possible mechanisms behind the periodic changes in song production remain unknown.