
==== Front
Wellcome Open Res
Wellcome Open Res
Wellcome Open Research
2398-502X
F1000 Research Limited London, UK

10.12688/wellcomeopenres.22587.1
Data Note
Articles
The genome sequence of the Barred Chestnut moth, Diarsia dahlii (Hübner, 1813)
[version 1; peer review: 2 approved]

Lees David C. Investigation Resources Writing – Original Draft Preparation Writing – Review & Editing https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7580-8560
1
Natural History Museum Genome Acquisition Lab
Darwin Tree of Life Barcoding collective
Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Management, Samples and Laboratory team
Wellcome Sanger Institute Scientific Operations: Sequencing Operations
Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Core Informatics team
Tree of Life Core Informatics collective
Darwin Tree of Life Consortiuma
1 Natural History Museum, London, England, UK
a mark.blaxter@sanger.ac.uk
No competing interests were disclosed.

5 7 2024
2024
9 35724 6 2024
Copyright: © 2024 Lees DC et al.
2024
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

We present a genome assembly from an individual female Diarsia dahlii (the Barred Chestnut; Arthropoda; Insecta; Lepidoptera; Noctuidae). The genome sequence is 683.0 megabases in span. Most of the assembly is scaffolded into 32 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the Z and W sex chromosomes. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 15.36 kilobases in length. Gene annotation of this assembly on Ensembl identified 13,177 protein coding genes.

Diarsia dahlii
the Barred Chestnut moth
genome sequence
chromosomal
Lepidoptera
Wellcome Trust218328 206194 This work was supported by Wellcome through core funding to the Wellcome Sanger Institute [206194, <a href=https://doi.org/10.35802/206194>https://doi.org/10.35802/206194</a>] and the Darwin Tree of Life Discretionary Award [218328, <a href=https://doi.org/10.35802/218328>https://doi.org/10.35802/218328 </a>]. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
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pmcSpecies taxonomy

Eukaryota; Opisthokonta; Metazoa; Eumetazoa; Bilateria; Protostomia; Ecdysozoa; Panarthropoda; Arthropoda; Mandibulata; Pancrustacea; Hexapoda; Insecta; Dicondylia; Pterygota; Neoptera; Endopterygota; Amphiesmenoptera; Lepidoptera; Glossata; Neolepidoptera; Heteroneura; Ditrysia; Obtectomera; Noctuoidea; Noctuidae; Diarsia; Diarsia dahlii (Hübner, 1813) (NCBI:txid1804828).

Background

Diarsia dahlii (Hübner, 1813) also known as the Barred Chestnut ( Waring et al., 2017), is a moth in the family Noctuidae with a wingspan of 32–44 mm and 15–18 mm forewing length ( Bretherton et al., 1979; Waring et al., 2017). It is the type species of Diarsia Hübner, [1821] ( Varga & Ronkay, 2007). The moth is pale brownish or reddish with paler yellow reniform and orbicular stigmata (the latter subtended by a black dot) and contrasting slightly darker or greyish transverse fasciae or ‘bars’, especially towards the termen; compared to related species of Diarsia (‘Clays’) the forewing costa tends to be more rounded, and the species is more strongly sexually dimorphic (females more reddish in England, more purplish-blackish in Scotland, the latter confusable with D. brunnea ([Denis & Schiffermüller], 1775) ( Bretherton et al., 1979; Waring et al., 2017).

D. dahlii is univoltine, flying from mid-July to late September with no sign of a recent shift in phenology ( Randle et al., 2019), preferring woodlands, moorlands and heaths on acid soils in Britain and Ireland, where it is widespread but localised, much more so in Ireland and the south of England (e.g. woodland on greensand Surrey). It is also widespread but rather localised in Western Europe, not in the Iberian Peninsula, but much commoner in Scandinavia including the far north, with scattered records through Asia as far east as Kamchatka and Japan ( GBIF Secretariat, 2024).

In Britain and Ireland, the Barred Chestnut has declined markedly in distribution especially in the south, gone from many sites pre-1970 (with a long-term distribution decline from 1970–2016 of 30%), but the overall abundance has increased by 156% ( Randle et al. 2019).

The rounded pale whitish egg is often laid in batches and the nocturnally active larva (see e.g. Lepiforum, 2024) feeds from October to May on woody (including sallows and birches) and herbaceous (e.g. docks Rumex spp.) plants and overwinters; fullfed it is c. 34 mm long ( Bretherton et al., 1979). The shiny brown pupa is enclosed in a loose cocoon in the ground. The nocturnal adult nectars on flowers such as Calluna vulgaris (L.) Hull. and wood sage Teucrium scorodonia L. ( Bretherton et al., 1979, Lepiforum, 2024).

The mitogenome from the genomic assembly (OX459221.1) (NHMUK014451629) is at least 0.15% divergent from other DNA barcode records from England, Scotland and Norway on BOLD (11/04/2024), belonging to the BIN cluster BOLD:AAE0664, whereas it is 2.01–2.61% divergent from others in BIN BOLD:ABX6544 from Finland, Russia and Bavaria. Only one BIN is so far known in Britain, which is just 1.92% divergent from BOLD:ABX6544 (a specimen from Finland identified as D. brunnea but representing the other BIN of D. dahlii). Members of the supposed subspecies D. dahlii tibetica Boursin, 1954 from China and D. dahlii nana (Staudinger, 1892) ( Varga & Ronkay, 2007) have not yet been DNA barcoded. D. dahlii belongs to the dahlii morphological species group that includes also D. protodahlii Varga & Ronkay, 2007. The Nearctic D. esurialis (Grote, 1881) (BOLD:ABX6710) is 2.67% pairwise divergent from the haplotype from the genomic assembly; the latter species belongs to a Nearctic species group comprising also D. calgary (Smith, 1898) ( Varga & Ronkay, 2007).

The genome will be helpful in exploring sister relationships in Diarsia and examining any genomic or biological correlates of the two mitochondrial BIN clusters.

Genome sequence report

The genome was sequenced from a female Diarsia dahlii ( Figure 1) collected from United Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve, Scotland, UK (57.63, –5.35). A total of 34-fold coverage in Pacific Biosciences single-molecule HiFi long reads was generated. Primary assembly contigs were scaffolded with chromosome conformation Hi-C data. Manual assembly curation corrected 35 missing joins or mis-joins and removed 8 haplotypic duplications, reducing the assembly length by 2.20% and the scaffold number by 24.49%, and increasing the scaffold N50 by 0.20%.

Figure 1. Photograph of the Diarsia dahlii (ilDiaDahl1) specimen used for genome sequencing.

The final assembly has a total length of 683.0 Mb in 36 sequence scaffolds with a scaffold N50 of 23.1 Mb ( Table 1). The snail plot in Figure 2 provides a summary of the assembly statistics, while the distribution of assembly scaffolds on GC proportion and coverage is shown in Figure 3. The cumulative assembly plot in Figure 4 shows curves for subsets of scaffolds assigned to different phyla. Most (99.99%) of the assembly sequence was assigned to 32 chromosomal-level scaffolds, representing 30 autosomes and the Z and W sex chromosomes. Chromosome-scale scaffolds confirmed by the Hi-C data are named in order of size ( Figure 5; Table 2). The Z chromosome was identified by coverage and alignment to Diarsia rubi (GCA_932274075.1) ( Boyes et al., 2023), and the W chromosome identified by read coverage. While not fully phased, the assembly deposited is of one haplotype. Contigs corresponding to the second haplotype have also been deposited. The mitochondrial genome was also assembled and can be found as a contig within the multifasta file of the genome submission.

Table 1. Genome data for Diarsia dahlii, ilDiaDahl1.1.

Project accession data	
Assembly identifier	ilDiaDahl1.1	
Species	Diarsia dahlii	
Specimen	ilDiaDahl1	
NCBI taxonomy ID	1804828	
BioProject	PRJEB60641	
BioSample and isolate information	PacBio HiFi sequencing: ilDiaDahl1, female, head and thorax SAMEA14448499
Hi-C scaffolding: ilDiaDahl1, female: abdomen SAMEA14448498
RNA sequencing: ilDiaDahl1, female, remaining head and thorax tissue SAMEA14448497	
Assembly metrics *	Benchmark	
Consensus quality (QV)	65.4	≥ 50	
k-mer completeness	100.0%	≥ 95%	
BUSCO **	C:98.7%[S:98.1%,D:0.5%],F:0.3%,M:1.0%,n:5,286	C ≥ 95%	
Percentage of assembly mapped to chromosomes	99.99%	≥ 95%	
Sex chromosomes	ZW	localised homologous pairs	
Organelles	Mitochondrial genome: 15.36 kb	complete single alleles	
Raw data accessions	
PacificBiosciences SEQUEL II	ERR11029661	
Hi-C Illumina	ERR11040173	
PolyA RNA-Seq Illumina	ERR11641131	
Genome assembly	
Assembly accession	GCA_949775195.1	
Accession of alternate haplotype	GCA_949775585.1	
Span (Mb)	683.0	
Number of contigs	111	
Contig N50 length (Mb)	10.1	
Number of scaffolds	36	
Scaffold N50 length (Mb)	23.1	
Longest scaffold (Mb)	34.58	
Genome annotation	
Number of protein-coding genes	13,177	
Number of non-coding genes	2,604	
Number of gene transcripts	23,666	
* Assembly metric benchmarks are adapted from column VGP-2020 of “Table 1: Proposed standards and metrics for defining genome assembly quality” from Rhie et al. (2021).

** BUSCO scores based on the lepidoptera_odb10 BUSCO set using version 5.3.2. C = complete [S = single copy, D = duplicated], F = fragmented, M = missing, n = number of orthologues in comparison. A full set of BUSCO scores is available at https://blobtoolkit.genomehubs.org/view/ilDiaDahl1_1/dataset/ilDiaDahl1_1/busco.

Figure 2. Genome assembly of Diarsia dahlii, ilDiaDahl1.1: metrics.

The BlobToolKit snail plot shows N50 metrics and BUSCO gene completeness. The main plot is divided into 1,000 size-ordered bins around the circumference with each bin representing 0.1% of the 682,983,932 bp assembly. The distribution of scaffold lengths is shown in dark grey with the plot radius scaled to the longest scaffold present in the assembly (34,578,549 bp, shown in red). Orange and pale-orange arcs show the N50 and N90 scaffold lengths (23,141,363 and 15,636,754 bp), respectively. The pale grey spiral shows the cumulative scaffold count on a log scale with white scale lines showing successive orders of magnitude. The blue and pale-blue area around the outside of the plot shows the distribution of GC, AT and N percentages in the same bins as the inner plot. A summary of complete, fragmented, duplicated and missing BUSCO genes in the lepidoptera_odb10 set is shown in the top right. An interactive version of this figure is available at https://blobtoolkit.genomehubs.org/view/ilDiaDahl1_1/dataset/ilDiaDahl1_1/snail.

Figure 3. Genome assembly of Diarsia dahlii, ilDiaDahl1.1: BlobToolKit GC-coverage plot.

Sequences are coloured by phylum. Circles are sized in proportion to sequence length. Histograms show the distribution of sequence length sum along each axis. An interactive version of this figure is available at https://blobtoolkit.genomehubs.org/view/ilDiaDahl1_1/dataset/ilDiaDahl1_1/blob.

Figure 4. Genome assembly of Diarsia dahlii, ilDiaDahl1.1: BlobToolKit cumulative sequence plot.

The grey line shows cumulative length for all sequences. Coloured lines show cumulative lengths of sequences assigned to each phylum using the buscogenes taxrule. An interactive version of this figure is available at https://blobtoolkit.genomehubs.org/view/ilDiaDahl1_1/dataset/ilDiaDahl1_1/cumulative.

Figure 5. Genome assembly of Diarsia dahlii, ilDiaDahl1.1: Hi-C contact map of the ilDiaDahl1.1 assembly, visualised using HiGlass.

Chromosomes are shown in order of size from left to right and top to bottom. An interactive version of this figure may be viewed at https://genome-note-higlass.tol.sanger.ac.uk/l/?d=cC69O4MsTNqCZ3Q0Wd-WZQ.

Table 2. Chromosomal pseudomolecules in the genome assembly of Diarsia dahlii, ilDiaDahl1.

INSDC accession	Chromosome	Length (Mb)	GC%	
OX459190.1	1	26.04	38.0	
OX459191.1	2	25.94	38.5	
OX459193.1	3	24.75	38.5	
OX459194.1	4	24.38	38.0	
OX459195.1	5	24.32	38.5	
OX459196.1	6	24.03	38.0	
OX459197.1	7	23.91	38.5	
OX459198.1	8	23.77	38.0	
OX459199.1	9	23.6	38.0	
OX459200.1	10	23.49	38.0	
OX459201.1	11	23.21	38.0	
OX459202.1	12	23.14	38.0	
OX459203.1	13	23.1	38.5	
OX459204.1	14	22.77	38.0	
OX459205.1	15	22.13	38.0	
OX459206.1	16	22.0	38.5	
OX459207.1	17	21.72	38.0	
OX459208.1	18	21.68	38.5	
OX459209.1	19	21.26	38.5	
OX459210.1	20	21.01	38.5	
OX459211.1	21	20.78	38.5	
OX459212.1	22	19.18	38.0	
OX459213.1	23	18.64	38.5	
OX459214.1	24	15.83	39.0	
OX459215.1	25	15.64	38.5	
OX459216.1	26	15.14	38.5	
OX459217.1	27	13.3	39.5	
OX459218.1	28	12.99	39.0	
OX459219.1	29	12.52	39.0	
OX459220.1	30	12.3	39.0	
OX459192.1	W	25.58	40.0	
OX459189.1	Z	34.58	38.0	
OX459221.1	MT	0.02	19.0	

The estimated Quality Value (QV) of the final assembly is 65.4 with k-mer completeness of 100.0%, and the assembly has a BUSCO v5.3.2 completeness of 98.7% (single = 98.1%, duplicated = 0.5%), using the lepidoptera_odb10 reference set ( n = 5,286).

Metadata for specimens, barcode results, spectra estimates, sequencing runs, contaminants and pre-curation assembly statistics are given at https://links.tol.sanger.ac.uk/species/1804828.

Genome annotation report

The Diarsia dahlii genome assembly (GCA_949775195.1) was annotated at the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI) on Ensembl Rapid Release. The resulting annotation includes 23,666 transcribed mRNAs from 13,177 protein-coding and 2,604 non-coding genes ( Table 1; https://rapid.ensembl.org/Diarsia_dahlii_GCA_949775195.1/Info/Index).

Methods

Sample acquisition and nucleic acid extraction

A female Diarsia dahlii (specimen ID NHMUK014451629, ToLID ilDiaDahl1) was collected from Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve, Scotland, UK (latitude 57.63, longitude –5.35) on 2021-09-09 using a light trap. The specimen was collected and identified by David Lees (Natural History Museum) and preserved by dry freezing at –80 °C.

The workflow for high molecular weight (HMW) DNA extraction at the Wellcome Sanger Institute (WSI) includes a sequence of core procedures: sample preparation; sample homogenisation, DNA extraction, fragmentation, and clean-up. In sample preparation, the ilDiaDahl1 sample was weighed and dissected on dry ice ( Jay et al., 2023). Tissue from the head and thorax was homogenised using a PowerMasher II tissue disruptor ( Denton et al., 2023a).

HMW DNA was extracted in the WSI Scientific Operations core using the Automated MagAttract v2 protocol ( Oatley et al., 2023). The DNA was sheared into an average fragment size of 12–20 kb in a Megaruptor 3 system with speed setting 31 ( Bates et al., 2023). Sheared DNA was purified by solid-phase reversible immobilisation ( Strickland et al., 2023): in brief, the method employs a 1.8X ratio of AMPure PB beads to sample to eliminate shorter fragments and concentrate the DNA. The concentration of the sheared and purified DNA was assessed using a Nanodrop spectrophotometer and Qubit Fluorometer and Qubit dsDNA High Sensitivity Assay kit. Fragment size distribution was evaluated by running the sample on the FemtoPulse system.

RNA was extracted from remaining head and thorax tissue of ilDiaDahl1 in the Tree of Life Laboratory at the WSI using the RNA Extraction: Automated MagMax™ mirVana protocol ( do Amaral et al., 2023). The RNA concentration was assessed using a Nanodrop spectrophotometer and a Qubit Fluorometer using the Qubit RNA Broad-Range Assay kit. Analysis of the integrity of the RNA was done using the Agilent RNA 6000 Pico Kit and Eukaryotic Total RNA assay.

Protocols developed by the WSI Tree of Life laboratory are publicly available on protocols.io ( Denton et al., 2023b).

Sequencing

Pacific Biosciences HiFi circular consensus DNA sequencing libraries were constructed according to the manufacturers’ instructions. Poly(A) RNA-Seq libraries were constructed using the NEB Ultra II RNA Library Prep kit. DNA and RNA sequencing was performed by the Scientific Operations core at the WSI on Pacific Biosciences SEQUEL II (HiFi) and Illumina NovaSeq 6000 (RNA-Seq) instruments. Hi-C data were also generated from abdomen tissue of ilDiaDahl1 using the Arima v2 kit. The Hi-C sequencing was performed using paired-end sequencing with a read length of 150 bp on the Illumina NovaSeq 6000 instrument.

Genome assembly, curation and evaluation

Assembly was carried out with Hifiasm ( Cheng et al., 2021) and haplotypic duplication was identified and removed with purge_dups ( Guan et al., 2020). The assembly was then scaffolded with Hi-C data ( Rao et al., 2014) using YaHS ( Zhou et al., 2023). The assembly was checked for contamination and corrected as described previously ( Howe et al., 2021). Manual curation was performed using HiGlass ( Kerpedjiev et al., 2018) and PretextView ( Harry, 2022). The mitochondrial genome was assembled using MitoHiFi ( Uliano-Silva et al., 2023), which runs MitoFinder ( Allio et al., 2020) or MITOS ( Bernt et al., 2013) and uses these annotations to select the final mitochondrial contig and to ensure the general quality of the sequence.

A Hi-C map for the final assembly was produced using bwa-mem2 ( Vasimuddin et al., 2019) in the Cooler file format ( Abdennur & Mirny, 2020). To assess the assembly metrics, the k-mer completeness and QV consensus quality values were calculated in Merqury ( Rhie et al., 2020). This work was done using Nextflow ( Di Tommaso et al., 2017) DSL2 pipelines “sanger-tol/readmapping” ( Surana et al., 2023a) and “sanger-tol/genomenote” ( Surana et al., 2023b). The genome was analysed within the BlobToolKit environment ( Challis et al., 2020) and BUSCO scores ( Manni et al., 2021; Simão et al., 2015) were calculated.

Table 3 contains a list of relevant software tool versions and sources.

Table 3. Software tools: versions and sources.

Software tool	Version	Source	
BlobToolKit	4.2.1	https://github.com/blobtoolkit/blobtoolkit	
BUSCO	5.3.2	https://gitlab.com/ezlab/busco	
Hifiasm	0.16.1-r375	https://github.com/chhylp123/hifiasm	
HiGlass	1.11.6	https://github.com/higlass/higlass	
Merqury	MerquryFK	https://github.com/thegenemyers/MERQURY.FK	
MitoHiFi	3	https://github.com/marcelauliano/MitoHiFi	
PretextView	0.2	https://github.com/sanger-tol/PretextView	
purge_dups	1.2.5	https://github.com/dfguan/purge_dups	
sanger-tol/genomenote	v1.0	https://github.com/sanger-tol/genomenote	
sanger-tol/readmapping	1.1.0	https://github.com/sanger-tol/readmapping/tree/1.1.0	
YaHS	1.2a	https://github.com/c-zhou/yahs	

Genome annotation

The Ensembl Genebuild annotation system ( Aken et al., 2016) was used to generate annotation for the Diarsia dahlii assembly (GCA_949775195.1) in Ensembl Rapid Release at the EBI. Annotation was created primarily through alignment of transcriptomic data to the genome, with gap filling via protein-to-genome alignments of a select set of proteins from UniProt ( UniProt Consortium, 2019).

Wellcome Sanger Institute – Legal and Governance

The materials that have contributed to this genome note have been supplied by a Darwin Tree of Life Partner. The submission of materials by a Darwin Tree of Life Partner is subject to the ‘Darwin Tree of Life Project Sampling Code of Practice’, which can be found in full on the Darwin Tree of Life website here. By agreeing with and signing up to the Sampling Code of Practice, the Darwin Tree of Life Partner agrees they will meet the legal and ethical requirements and standards set out within this document in respect of all samples acquired for, and supplied to, the Darwin Tree of Life Project.

Further, the Wellcome Sanger Institute employs a process whereby due diligence is carried out proportionate to the nature of the materials themselves, and the circumstances under which they have been/are to be collected and provided for use. The purpose of this is to address and mitigate any potential legal and/or ethical implications of receipt and use of the materials as part of the research project, and to ensure that in doing so we align with best practice wherever possible. The overarching areas of consideration are:

•   Ethical review of provenance and sourcing of the material

•   Legality of collection, transfer and use (national and international)

Each transfer of samples is further undertaken according to a Research Collaboration Agreement or Material Transfer Agreement entered into by the Darwin Tree of Life Partner, Genome Research Limited (operating as the Wellcome Sanger Institute), and in some circumstances other Darwin Tree of Life collaborators.

Data availability

European Nucleotide Archive. Diarsia dahlii. Accession number PRJEB60641; https://identifiers.org/ena.embl/PRJEB60641 ( Wellcome Sanger Institute, 2023). The genome sequence is released openly for reuse. The Diarsia dahlii genome sequencing initiative is part of the Darwin Tree of Life (DToL) project. All raw sequence data and the assembly have been deposited in INSDC databases. Raw data and assembly accession identifiers are reported in Table 1.

Author information

Members of the Natural History Museum Genome Acquisition Lab are listed here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7139035.

Members of the Darwin Tree of Life Barcoding collective are listed here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4893703.

Members of the Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Management, Samples and Laboratory team are listed here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10066175.

Members of Wellcome Sanger Institute Scientific Operations: Sequencing Operations are listed here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10043364.

Members of the Wellcome Sanger Institute Tree of Life Core Informatics team are listed here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10066637.

Members of the Tree of Life Core Informatics collective are listed here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5013541.

Members of the Darwin Tree of Life Consortium are listed here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4783558.

10.21956/wellcomeopenres.24885.r96017
Reviewer response for version 1
Martinez Jose 1Referee https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4368-2729

1 University of Florida, Florida, USA
16 9 2024 Copyright: © 2024 Martinez J
2024
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access peer review report distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Version 1recommendationapprove
Lees reports a highly complete and well-assembled genome of the Barred Chestnut moth, Diarsia dahlii (Hübner, 1813), based on sequencing from a female specimen. The assembly, featuring an exceptionally high BUSCO score, is organized into 32 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including fully recovered Z and W sex chromosomes. This achievement, supported by rigorous methodological approaches, has produced a remarkably detailed and high-quality genomic resource.

The creation of the dataset is underpinned by a clear and well-structured rationale, with descriptions that are concise and easy to comprehend. The protocols and methodologies are meticulously selected, ensuring both accuracy and reproducibility. The dataset itself is highly standardized, complemented by detailed illustrations, and readily accessible, making it an invaluable resource for a wide range of research applications.

The author further compared this mitogenome with other specimens and species within the same genus, highlighting its significance in addressing systematic and taxonomic challenges, particularly within the family Noctuidae and related groups.

Are sufficient details of methods and materials provided to allow replication by others?

Yes

Is the rationale for creating the dataset(s) clearly described?

Yes

Are the datasets clearly presented in a useable and accessible format?

Yes

Are the protocols appropriate and is the work technically sound?

Yes

Reviewer Expertise:

Evolutionary Biology, Ecology, IPM, Integrative Biology, Entomology, Genomics

I confirm that I have read this submission and believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard.

10.21956/wellcomeopenres.24885.r94049
Reviewer response for version 1
Whibley Annabel 12Referee https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1878-7705

1 The University of Auckland, Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
2 Grapevine Improvement, Bragato Research Institute, Lincoln, New Zealand
3 9 2024 Copyright: © 2024 Whibley A
2024
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access peer review report distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Version 1recommendationapprove
Lees and colleagues describe the sequencing, genome assembly and annotation of a female Diarsia dahlii moth (known as the Barred Chestnut moth). The genomic resources generated are of high quality, well documented and use appropriate methods. Public accession links are working. 

Minor comments:

The language in the description of coloration is quite technical- perhaps the authors could consider providing alternative, simpler terms to explain “reniform” and “orbicular” to non-taxonomists in this section, as they later do for “transverse fasciae”: “The moth is pale brownish or reddish with paler yellow reniform and orbicular stigmata (the latter subtended by a black dot) and contrasting slightly darker or greyish transverse fasciae or ‘bars’…”

Consider “The mitogenome from this genomic assembly” rather than “…the genomic assembly”. Given that this statement precedes description of the assembly itself, it would help to clarify that you are not referring to a different dataset.

The section on BOLD BIN divergence would benefit from some framing statements about the questions underpinning  these observations.

Are sufficient details of methods and materials provided to allow replication by others?

Yes

Is the rationale for creating the dataset(s) clearly described?

Yes

Are the datasets clearly presented in a useable and accessible format?

Yes

Are the protocols appropriate and is the work technically sound?

Yes

Reviewer Expertise:

Genomics, Evolution, Bioinformatics

I confirm that I have read this submission and believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard.

Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed.

Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
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