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The Asian corn borer (Ostrinia furnacalis), a major economic pest of crops such as corn, sugarcane, millet, and sorghum, is widely distributed from Asia to the western Pacific islands. Its broad distribution and polyphagous traits are largely due to its larval diapause, which allows survival during winter. To facilitate genetic studies on its adaptability, we generated a high-quality genome assembly for O. furnacalis using Illumina, PacBio, and Hi-C technologies. The assembled 481.9 Mb genome comprises 135 scaffolds with an N50 of 16.6 Mb, and 98.5% of the sequences were assigned to 31 chromosomes through Hi-C scaffolding. Gene prediction identified 16,272 genes, with 97.0% completeness based on BUSCO assessment. This chromosome-level genome assembly and gene annotation provide an invaluable resource for studying the genetic variation of O. furnacalis and offer new insights into its diapause mechanism and adaptability.
Liu et al. (Tue,) studied this question.