Whole-genome assembly and annotation of the bumblebee wax moth, <i>Aphomia sociella</i>

The bumble bee wax moth, Aphomia sociella, is an important lepidopteran pest impacting bee colonies essential for pollination and apiculture. Like other moths, this species has been reported to ingest plastics. Although specific enzymes have been proposed to facilitate plastic catabolism in some moths, with controversial results, this remains entirely unexplored in A. sociella. Despite the biological and ecological relevance of A. sociella, sequence efforts aimed at understanding the genetic makeup of this species have not yet been undertaken. In this work, we successfully achieved a high-quality de novo genome assembly of A. sociella and comprehensive gene annotations generated from long-read DNA and RNA sequencing with Oxford Nanopore Technology. The haploid assembly includes 347 contigs, with an N50 of 4.96 Mb, and contains 12,618 protein-coding genes. Benchmarking Universal Single-Copy Orthologs (BUSCO) analyses indicates that the assembly has a high level of completeness (98.8%) and low level of fragmentation (4.1%) and duplication (0.2%). Phylogenomic analyses with other members of the Lepidoptera order placed A. sociella in the same clade as Aphomia cephalonica and indicates close evolutionary relationships with the other two species in the subfamily Galleriinae, namely Achroia grisella and Galleria mellonella. This new high-quality genome assembly, and associated annotations, represents a valuable resource for investigating the genomic basis of ecological specialization of A. sociella, including wax and possibly plastic utilization, while offering critical support for research aimed at developing sustainable and effective pest management strategies.