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Student 10-Minute Presentation

Systematics, Evolution, and Biodiversity

Student

Student Competition

Grad 10-min Competition: SysEB, Phylogenetics

The complete mitochondrial genome of frosted elfin (Callophrys irus) and molecular evolution within the Lycaenidae family

Monday, November 11, 2024
9:36 AM – 9:48 AM MST
Location: Phoenix Convention Center, 224 B, PCC
Oral Presentation Student Competition
Callophrys irus, commonly known as Frosted Elfin, is a butterfly from the Lycaenidae family. Habitat loss and fragmentation have precipitated a significant historical population decline for the species, resulting in its extirpation from Canada and three U.S. states. These threats prompted the evaluation of this species for possible listing under the Endangered Species Act. Genomics is a powerful tool to aid insect conservation. Our lab is working directly with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to generate genomic resources to inform C. irus conservation management strategies. Here, we present the species' first complete mitochondrial genome assembly and the results obtained for the phylogenetics analysis within the Lycaenidae family. Our preliminary results show that our genome assembly has three potential contigs that show high score hit with available Lycaenidae mitogenomes (i.e., blast hit length of 12837, 12838, and 128378 with e-value = 0, and GC contents of 17,76%, 17,50 %, and 17,38%, respectively). Both length and GC contents of these contigs indicate that our low-depth Third-generation genome sequencing allowed us not only to generate a high-quality genome for the species, but it will also enable the mitochondrial genome assembly. Moreover, we also show the results of a pipeline using the mitochondrial genome to develop cost-effective species-specific molecular tools. We show preliminary results of our pipeline's feasibility by applying it to different Frosted Elfin subspecies. We anticipate that the benefits and pipeline described in our study can be applied to aid the conservation of other insect species.