The genome sequence of the yellow-legged black legionnaire, Beris morrisii (Dale, 1841)

We present a genome assembly from an individual female Beris morrisii (the yellow-legged black legionnaire; Arthropoda; Insecta; Diptera; Stratiomyidae). The genome sequence is 613.3 megabases in span. Most of the assembly is scaffolded into 5 chromosomal pseudomolecules, including the X sex chromosome. The mitochondrial genome has also been assembled and is 16.69 kilobases in length.


Background
The Stratiomyidae, the soldierflies, is a family of often strikingly-patterned flies with over 2,700 species worldwide.The six UK species in the genus Beris are, however, relatively dull in appearance.Adults of the genus Beris are unique among British soldierflies in having six spines on the scutellum, a character which distinguishes them from the related genus Chorisops with four scutellar spines.B. morrisii is one of four British Beris species with a dark -rather than yellow -abdomen, and of these it is the only one with yellow legs and clear wings (Stubbs & Drake, 2014).
B. morrisii is found across most of Europe, with the northernmost edge of its distribution reaching Scandinavia (Falck, 2007).In the UK the species is widespread, though most frequently recorded in the south of England; the most northerly record published on the NBN Atlas located on the coast of East Sutherland (NBN Atlas Partnership, 2023).B. morrisii has terrestrial larvae with a preference for damp habitats, where the larvae feed on decaying vegetation such as the roots of Angelica sp.Eclosion begins in mid-May, with adults being seen until September, with a peak of records in late June and early July (Stubbs & Drake, 2014).
The assembled genome of Beris morrisii will contribute to the growing set of resources for studying insect ecology and evolution.

Genome sequence report
The genome was sequenced from one female Beris morrisii (Figure 1) collected from Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire, UK (51.77, -1.34).A total of 39-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 24 missing joins or mis-joins and removed 3 haplotypic duplications, reducing the assembly length by 0.29% and the scaffold number by 10.53%.
The final assembly has a total length of 613.3 Mb in 33 sequence scaffolds with a scaffold N50 of 163.7 Mb (Table 1).The snailplot 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 (99.7%) of the assembly sequence was assigned to 5 chromosomal-level scaffolds, representing 4 autosomes and the X sex chromosome.Chromosome X was annotated by synteny to that of Beris chalybata (GCA_949128065.1).Chromosome-scale scaffolds confirmed by the Hi-C data are named in order of size (Figure 5; Table 2).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.

Sample acquisition and nucleic acid extraction
A female Beris morrisii (specimen ID Ox002555, ToLID idBerMorr1) was netted in Wytham Woods, Oxfordshire (biological vice-county Berkshire), UK (latitude 51.77, longitude -1.34) on 2022-07-27.The specimen was collected and identified by James McCulloch (University of Oxford) and preserved on dry ice.
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; HMW DNA fragmentation; and fragmented DNA clean-up.The sample was prepared for DNA extraction at the WSI Tree of Life laboratory: the idBerMorr1 sample was weighed and dissected on dry ice with tissue set aside for Hi-C sequencing (https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.x54v9prmqg3e/v1).Tissue from the whole organism was disrupted using a Nippi Powermasher fitted with a BioMasher pestle (https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.5qpvo3r19v4o/v1).DNA was extracted at the WSI Scientific Operations core using the Qiagen MagAttract HMW DNA kit, according to the manufacturer's instructions.instructions.DNA sequencing was performed by the Scientific Operations core at the WSI on a Pacific Biosciences SEQUEL II (HiFi) instrument.Hi-C data were also generated from tissue of idBerMorr1 using the Arima2 kit and sequenced on the Illumina NovaSeq 6000 instrument.et al., 2013) and uses these annotations to select the final mitochondrial contig and to ensure the general quality of the sequence.

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

Levente Laczkó
University of Debrecen, Debrecen,, Hungary In this paper, the authors present the high-quality genome assembly of Beris morrisii, in which multiple sequencing approaches were used to reconstruct the complete genome of the species.The background is well described and it is stated that this resource will aid research into the species, which I agree with.The sequencing and data analysis methods are appropriate.The primary assembly has high contiguity and the assembly was finalized using Hi-C contact maps, with potential contaminants also identified.The final assembly has a high completeness.The methodology is detailed and reproducible.The metadata of the samples are very well described, which facilitates the reusability of the data.I have no concerns about this article and support its publication Is the rationale for creating the dataset(s) clearly described?Yes Are the protocols appropriate and is the work technically sound?Yes

Are sufficient details of methods and materials provided to allow replication by others? Yes
Are the datasets clearly presented in a useable and accessible format?Yes Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
Reviewer Expertise: genomics, 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.
Is the rationale for creating the dataset(s) clearly described?Yes Are the protocols appropriate and is the work technically sound?Yes

Are sufficient details of methods and materials provided to allow replication by others? Yes
Are the datasets clearly presented in a useable and accessible format?Yes Competing Interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
Reviewer Expertise: genomics, repetitive DNA, evolution 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.

Figure 2 .
Figure 2. Genome assembly of Beris morrisii, idBerMorr1.1:metrics.The BlobToolKit Snailplot 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 613,277,372 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 (171,380,801 bp, shown in red).Orange and pale-orange arcs show the N50 and N90 scaffold lengths (163,701,312 and 117,093,200 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 diptera_odb10 set is shown in the top right.An interactive version of this figure is available at https://blobtoolkit.genomehubs.org/view/Beris%20morrisii/dataset/idBerMorr1_1/snail.

Figure 5 .
Figure 5. Genome assembly of Beris morrisii, idBerMorr1.1:Hi-C contact map of the idBerMorr1.1 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=b9TPaFp9QHCy_UbqZy1xmQ.

Table 1 . Genome data for Beris morrisii, idBerMorr1.1. Project accession data
All protocols developed by the Tree of Life laboratory are publicly available on protocols.io(https://dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.8epv5xxy6g1b/v1).SequencingPacific Biosciences HiFi circular consensus DNA sequencing libraries were constructed according to the manufacturers'

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