The Genome of an Ocean Wanderer: A High‐Quality Long‐Read Reference Genome for the Trindade Petrel ( Pterodroma arminjoniana )
7 affiliations
- 1Universidade Federal do Rio Grande—FURG, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas Rio Grande RS Brazil
- 2Department of Animal Biology, Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon CE3C—Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes & CHANGE —Global Change and Sustainability Institute Lisboa Portugal
- 3Natural History Museum at Tring Hertfordshire UK
- 4Institute of Zoology Zoological Society of London London UK
- 5Center of Ecology and Sustainable Management of Oceanic Island (ESMOI), Facultad de Ciencias del Mar Universidad Católica del Norte Coquimbo Chile
- 6Instituto de Ecología y Biodiversidad (IEB) Santiago Chile
- 7Department of the Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation Queensland Government Brisbane Queensland Australia
Abstract
The Trindade petrel ( Pterodroma arminjoniana ) is a procellariiform seabird found on Trindade Island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Recent evidence suggests that it also ranges and breeds across the Western Indian and South Pacific Oceans, where it hybridises with closely related species. The fitness effects of hybridisation, and the extent to which these might vary among populations, have yet to be studied in detail. Some populations contain seasonally distinct breeding sub‐populations, but the causes and consequences of this variation are unknown. While whole‐genome sequencing (WGS) is revolutionising our understanding of eco‐evolutionary processes such as hybridisation and local adaptation, there is a lack of high‐quality reference genomes in the Trindade petrel clade. Until recently, whole‐genome assemblies in Pterodroma petrels were limited to a small number of species and were largely based on short‐read sequencing. Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) is enabling long‐read sequencing of non‐model species, and this approach has recently been used to generate a high‐quality reference genome for Pterodroma . Here, we use ONT to produce a high‐quality long‐read reference genome for P. arminjoniana . We first generated a de novo assembly that we then scaffolded using the reference genome of a closely related species, the Cory's shearwater ( Calonectris borealis ). The resulting assembly, generated from a male bird, was 1.25 Gbp in size, had a scaffold N50 of 85 Mbp, and a BUSCO completeness score of 97.6%. Our annotation identified 18,099 protein‐coding genes, of which 92.1% corresponded to lineage‐consistent avian gene families, and no contamination was detected. We also compared the new reference with other Pterodroma genomes using a multispecies‐coalescent phylogenomic analysis. Our P. arminjoniana reference genome will be a valuable resource for ecological and evolutionary studies of this species and its close relatives, as well as for comparative genomic research on Procellariiformes more generally.
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BibTeX
@article{mazzochi2026genome,
title = {{The Genome of an Ocean Wanderer: A High‐Quality Long‐Read Reference Genome for the Trindade Petrel ( Pterodroma arminjoniana )}},
author = {Mariana Scain Mazzochi and Olga L. Herrera‐Trujillo and Ken Norris and Malcolm A. C. Nicoll and Paula Plaza and David A. Stewart and Maria P. Dias and Mónica C. Silva and Leandro Bugoni},
journal = {Ecology and Evolution},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1002/ece3.74568},
url = {https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.74568},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - The Genome of an Ocean Wanderer: A High‐Quality Long‐Read Reference Genome for the Trindade Petrel ( Pterodroma arminjoniana )
AU - Mariana Scain Mazzochi
AU - Olga L. Herrera‐Trujillo
AU - Ken Norris
AU - Malcolm A. C. Nicoll
AU - Paula Plaza
AU - David A. Stewart
AU - Maria P. Dias
AU - Mónica C. Silva
AU - Leandro Bugoni
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
JO - Ecology and Evolution
DO - 10.1002/ece3.74568
UR - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ece3.74568
AB - The Trindade petrel ( Pterodroma arminjoniana ) is a procellariiform seabird found on Trindade Island in the South Atlantic Ocean. Recent evidence suggests that it also ranges and breeds across the Western Indian and South Pacific Oceans, where it hybridises with closely related species. The fitness effects of hybridisation, and the extent to which these might vary among populations, have yet to be studied in detail. Some populations contain seasonally distinct breeding sub‐populations, but the causes and consequences of this variation are unknown. While whole‐genome sequencing (WGS) is revolutionising our understanding of eco‐evolutionary processes such as hybridisation and local adaptation, there is a lack of high‐quality reference genomes in the Trindade petrel clade. Until recently, whole‐genome assemblies in Pterodroma petrels were limited to a small number of species and were largely based on short‐read sequencing. Oxford Nanopore Technology (ONT) is enabling long‐read sequencing of non‐model species, and this approach has recently been used to generate a high‐quality reference genome for Pterodroma . Here, we use ONT to produce a high‐quality long‐read reference genome for P. arminjoniana . We first generated a de novo assembly that we then scaffolded using the reference genome of a closely related species, the Cory's shearwater ( Calonectris borealis ). The resulting assembly, generated from a male bird, was 1.25 Gbp in size, had a scaffold N50 of 85 Mbp, and a BUSCO completeness score of 97.6%. Our annotation identified 18,099 protein‐coding genes, of which 92.1% corresponded to lineage‐consistent avian gene families, and no contamination was detected. We also compared the new reference with other Pterodroma genomes using a multispecies‐coalescent phylogenomic analysis. Our P. arminjoniana reference genome will be a valuable resource for ecological and evolutionary studies of this species and its close relatives, as well as for comparative genomic research on Procellariiformes more generally.
SN - 2045-7758
SN - 2045-7758
ER -