Genome assembly of the Hawaiian flower thrips Thrips hawaiiensis (Thysanoptera: Thripidae)

The Hawaiian flower thrips, Thrips hawaiiensis, is a common flower inhabiting pest of various horticultural plant species. It damages flowers and fruits by puncturing. T. hawaiiensis shows a rapidly developed resistance to chemical control. The lack of a high-quality reference genome limits our understanding of genetics of T. hawaiiensis. Here, we sequenced the genome of T. hawaiiensis using Oxford Nanopore sequencing technology, Illumina, and Hi-C technology, yielding a genome assembly of 287.59 Mb with scaffold N50 of 13.84 Mb. BUSCO analysis demonstrated the T. hawaiiensis genome assembly has a high-level completeness of 98.7%. In total, 18,289 protein-coding genes and 26.69% repetitive elements were annotated. Our study presents the first high-quality genome assembly of T. hawaiiensis and lays the foundation for further studies on thrips genetic characteristics and pest management.