Chromosome-Level Genome Assembly of the Common Chaffinch (Aves: Fringilla coelebs): A Valuable Resource for Evolutionary Biology

The common chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs, is one of the most common, widespread, and well-studied passerines in Europe, with a broad distribution encompassing Western Europe and parts of Asia, North Africa, and the Macaronesian archipelagos. We present a high-quality genome assembly of the common chaffinch generated using Illumina shotgun sequencing in combination with Chicago and Hi-C libraries. The final genome is a 994.87-Mb chromosome-level assembly, with 98% of the sequence data located in chromosome scaffolds and a N50 statistic of 69.73 Mb. Our genome assembly shows high completeness, with a complete BUSCO score of 93.9% using the avian data set. Around 7.8% of the genome contains interspersed repetitive elements. The structural annotation yielded 17,703 genes, 86.5% of which have a functional annotation, including 7,827 complete universal single-copy orthologs out of 8,338 genes represented in the BUSCO avian data set. This new annotated genome assembly will be a valuable resource as a reference for comparative and population genomic analyses of passerine, avian, and vertebrate evolution

Chromosome-Level Genome Assembly of the Common Chaffinch (Aves: Fringilla coelebs): A Valuable Resource for Evolutionary Biology

The common chaffinch, Fringilla coelebs, is one of the most common, widespread, and well-studied passerines in Europe, with a broad distribution encompassingWestern Europe and parts ofAsia,NorthAfrica, and theMacaronesian archipelagos.We present a high-quality genome assemblyof the commonchaffinchgeneratedusing Illumina shotgunsequencing incombination with Chicago and Hi-C libraries. The final genome is a 994.87-Mb chromosome-level assembly, with 98% of the sequence data located in chromosome scaffolds and a N50 statistic of 69.73Mb. Our genome assembly shows high completeness, with a complete BUSCO score of 93.9% using the avian data set. Around 7.8% of the genome contains interspersed repetitive elements. The structural annotation yielded 17,703 genes, 86.5% of which have a functional annotation, including 7,827 complete universal single-copy orthologs out of 8,338 genes represented in the BUSCO avian data set. This newannotated genome assemblywill be a valuable resource as a reference for comparative and population genomic analyses of passerine, avian, and vertebrate evolution.This research was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (CGL2015-66381P to B.M. and G.B.) and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (PGC2018-098897-B-I00 from to B.M.). M.R. was supported by a doctoral fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Education, Culture, and Sport (FPU16/05724). We also acknowledge institutional support from the Unit of Information Resources for Research at the Unit of Information Resources for Research at the "Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas" (CSIC) for the article-processing charges contribution.We acknowledge support of the publication fee by the CSIC Open Access Publication Support Initiative through its Unit of Information Resources for Research (URICI).Peer reviewe