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Effects of intraguild predation (IGP) on omnivores and detritivores are relatively understudied when compared to work on predator guilds. Functional genetic work in IGP is even more limited, but its application can help answer a range of questions related to ultimate and proximate causes of this behavior. Here, we integrate behavioral assays and transcriptomic analysis of facultative predation in a blow fly (Diptera: Calliphoridae) to evaluate the prevalence, effect, and correlated gene expression of facultative predation by the invasive species Chrysomya rufifacies. Field work observing donated human cadavers indicated facultative predation by C. rufifacies on the native blow fly Cochliomyia macellaria was rare under undisturbed conditions, owing in part to spatial segregation between species. Laboratory assays under conditions of starvation showed predation had a direct fitness benefit (i.e., survival) to the predator. As a genome is not available for C. rufifacies, a de novo transcriptome was developed and annotated using sequence similarity to Drosophila melanogaster. Under a variety of assembly parameters, several genes were identified as being differentially expressed between predators and nonpredators of this species, including genes involved in cell‐to‐cell signaling, osmotic regulation, starvation responses, and dopamine regulation. Results of this work were integrated to develop a model of the processes and genetic regulation controlling facultative predation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: With increased availability of de novo assembly algorithms, it is feasible to study entire transcriptomes of non-model organisms. While algorithms are available that are specifically designed for performing transcriptome assembly from high-throughput sequencing data, they are very memory-intensive, limiting their applications to small data sets with few libraries. Results: We develop a transcriptome assembly algorithm that recovers alternatively spliced isoforms and expression levels while utilizing as many RNA-Seq libraries as possible that contain hundreds of gigabases of data. New techniques are developed so that computations can be performed on a computing cluster with moderate amount of physical memory. Conclusions: Our strategy minimizes memory consumption while simultaneously obtaining comparable or improved accuracy over existing algorithms. It provides support for incremental updates of assemblies when new libraries become available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bumble bees are ecologically and economically important insect pollinators. Three abundant and widespread species in western North America, Bombus bifarius , Bombus vancouverensis , and Bombus vosnesenskii , have been the focus of substantial research relating to diverse aspects of bumble bee ecology and evolutionary biology. We present de novo genome assemblies for each of the three species using hybrid assembly of Illumina and Oxford Nanopore Technologies sequences. All three assemblies are of high quality with large N50s (> 2.2 Mb), BUSCO scores indicating > 98% complete genes, and annotations producing 13,325 - 13,687 genes, comparing favorably with other bee genomes. Analysis of synteny against the most complete bumble bee genome, Bombus terrestris , reveals a high degree of collinearity. These genomes should provide a valuable resource for addressing questions relating to functional genomics and evolutionary biology in these species., (Copyright © 2020 Heraghty et al.)