Improved chromosome-level genome assembly and annotation of the seagrass, Zostera marina (eelgrass) [version 1; peer review: 1 approved]

Seagrasses (Alismatales) are the only fully marine angiosperms. Zostera marina (eelgrass) plays a crucial role in the functioning of coastal marine ecosystems and global carbon sequestration. It is the most widely studied seagrass and has become a marine model system for exploring adaptation under rapid climate change. The original draft genome (v.1.0) of the seagrass Z. marina (L.) was based on a combination of Illumina mate-pair libraries and fosmid-ends. A total of 25.55 Gb of Illumina and 0.14 Gb of Sanger sequence was obtained representing 47.7× genomic coverage. The assembly resulted in ~2000 unordered scaffolds (L50 of 486 Kb), a final genome assembly size of 203MB, 20,450 protein coding genes and 63% TE content. Here, we present an upgraded chromosome-scale genome assembly and compare v.1.0 and the new v.3.1, reconfirming previous results from Olsen et al. (2016), as well as pointing out new findings.

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