Genome Size Survey of the Japanese Pine Sawyer Beetle, Monochamus alternatus (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae)

Monochamus alternatus is a longicorn beetle, an important stem borer of pine trees in China. In this study, we determined the first accurate genomic survey of M. alternatus by the next-generation sequencing (NGS), which is a relatively new methodology that can ensure the identification of large numbers of simple sequences repeat (SSR) markers, in order to increases the abundance of the Cerambycidae genome information and assist in phylogenetic, molecular systematics and evolutionary studies for Coleoptera. The result showed that the genome size was 871.09 Mb, the GC content of the genome was within normal limits (34.45%), the proportion of repetitive sequences was high (59.40%), and the heterozygosity rate was low (1.04%). The heterozygosity of M. alternatus is higher than 0.5% and the repeat rate is more than 50%. Based on this we inferred the use of Illumina+PacBio in sequencing assembly strategy is highly recommended.