# De‐novo assembly of four rail (Aves: Rallidae) genomes: A resource for comparative genomics

## TL;DR

This paper presents high-quality genome assemblies for four rail bird species from New Zealand, providing a valuable resource for studying their evolution and genetics.

## Contribution

The study provides the first de-novo genome assemblies for two flightless rail species from New Zealand.

## Key findings

- Heterozygosity was lowest in the flightless rail species, likely due to small population sizes.
- The new assemblies are of good quality and comparable to other rallid genomes.
- The study significantly increases the number of available rallid genomes for comparative research.

## Abstract

Rails are a phenotypically diverse family of birds that includes 130 species and displays a wide distribution around the world. Here we present annotated genome assemblies for four rails from Aotearoa New Zealand: two native volant species, pūkeko Porphyrio melanotus and mioweka Gallirallus philippensis, and two endemic flightless species takahē Porphyrio hochstetteri and weka Gallirallus australis. Using the sequence read data, heterozygosity was found to be lowest in the endemic flightless species and this probably reflects their relatively small populations. The quality checks and comparison with other rallid genomes showed that the new assemblies were of good quality. This study significantly increases the number of available rallid genomes and will enable future genomic studies on the evolution of this family.

We report new annotated genome assemblies for four New Zealand rails: two native volant species, and two endemic flightless species. This study significantly increases the number of available rallid genomes and will enable future comparative genomic studies on the evolution of this family. We find our genome assemblies and annotations are comparable to similar species. Heterozygosity was high in the two volant species and low in the two endemic flightless species.