A high-quality reference genome for the ornate shrew ( <i>Sorex ornatus</i> )
The ornate shrew (Sorex ornatus) is a small predatory mammal with a broad distribution in northern, central, and southern California as well as in Baja California, Mexico. The ornate shrew is a highly productive consumer in wetland environments and is known to hybridize with the closely related vagrant shrew, S. vagrans. Here we present a high-quality de novo genome assembly for S. ornatus generated as a part of the California Conservation Genomics Project. The S. ornatus genome was generated using PacBio HiFi long reads and Omni-C chromatin interaction sequencing. The primary assembly is highly contiguous, with a contig N50 of 15.9 Mb, a scaffold N50 of 115.2 Mb, and a BUSCO completeness score of 95.10%. The ornate shrew genome will serve as a valuable resource for future North American Sorex conservation genomics as well as for research into shrew biology more generally.
Authors
- Mohan P A Marimuthu (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6121-3286)
- Rauri C. K. Bowie (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8328-6021)
- William Seligmann (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5762-3095)
- Colin W Fairbairn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0007-8129-0095)
- Eric Beraut (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4443-6282)
- Noravit Chumchim (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1139-9427)
- Michael W. Nachman (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4321-5135)
- Oanh Nguyen (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1492-2084)
- Merly Escalona (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0213-4777)
- I. J. Linn (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4143-0296)
- Christopher J Conroy
Institutions
- Museum of Vertebrate Zoology (US)
- University of California, Santa Cruz (US)
- Acupuncture & Integrative Medicine College (US)
- University of California, Davis (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Journal of Heredity
- Published
- 2025-10-03
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1093/jhered/esaf074
- Primary Topic
- Bat Biology and Ecology Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 0.00