Christoph Bleidorn

28.01.2025

Unleashing the power of museum collections with short read phylogenomics

Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany
Animal Evolution and Biodiversity

Abstract

While long-read sequencing enabled chromosome-resolved genome assemblies, the bottleneck to achieve the aim of sequencing all life on earth is the availability of samples in the needed quality. Scientific collections remain a treasure trove, hosting specimens available for short-read sequencing from all over the world. I will introduce methods of using genome-skiming data for draft genome assemblies and highlight the potential for phylogenomics, genomics and biodiversity research, using nereidid phylogeny as an example.