A reference genome assembly of the declining tricolored blackbird,Agelaius tricolor

Abstract

The tricolored blackbird, Agelaius tricolor, is a gregarious species that forms enormous breeding and foraging colonies in wetland and agricultural habitats, primarily in California, USA. Once extremely abundant, species numbers have declined dramatically in the past century, largely due to losses of breeding and foraging habitats. Tricolored blackbirds are currently listed as Endangered by the IUCN, and Threatened under the California Endangered Species Act. Increased genetic information is needed to detail the evolutionary consequences of a species-wide bottleneck and inform conservation management. Here we present a contiguous tricolored blackbird reference genome, assembled with PacBio HiFi long reads and Dovetail Omni-C data to generate a scaffold-level assembly containing multiple chromosome-length scaffolds. This genome adds a valuable resource for important evolutionary and conservation research on tricolored blackbirds and related species.