A reference genome for boat-tailed grackles (<i>Quiscalus major</i>)

Boat-tailed Grackles (Quiscalus major) are marsh-dwelling blackbirds that are endemic to the eastern United States. Various aspects of their biology have been studied extensively, including their mating system, plumage and molt patterns, diet, and interspecific interactions. Boat-tailed Grackles are also interesting because they exhibit variation in their iris color that is associated with geography. However, resources that enable genomic studies of Boat-tailed Grackles and other related grackle species are few. Here, we combined Pacific Biosciences long-read, HiFi data with short-read Illumina data from a HiC library to produce haplotype-phased, chromosome-scale genome assemblies for Boat-tailed Grackles. The final version of the assembly, bQuiMaj1, includes two, contiguous haplotypes with total lengths of ~1 Gbp, N50s of ~70 Mbp, and L50s of 5-6. BUSCO and merqury analyses suggest both haplotypes are also relatively complete (95-99%) with respect to gene and k-mer content. The resulting assemblies will significantly enhance our understanding of Boat-tailed Grackle biology and physiology, as well as contribute to the growing number of genomes representing species belonging to the taxonomic family Icteridae (the New World blackbirds).