Transcriptome Sequencing of Two Phenotypic Mosaic Eucalyptus Trees

The chemically mosaic trees are interesting because they differ in their susceptibility to insect herbivory. Most of the canopy suffers ca 95% defoliation during an insect outbreak, but a small portion of the canopy is left virtually untouched (ca 5% defoliation). The two types of leaves look identical but have different terpene and formylated phloroglucinol compound profiles. Here we sequenced the transcriptome of the resistant and susceptible leaves from each of the two mosaic trees. The overall goal was to find the predicted somatic mutation that resulted in the mosaicism, however we also aimed to describe differences in gene expression between the two types of leaves.