Reference genomes from representative species across families provide the critical infrastructure for research and conservation. The Cetacean Genomes Project (CGP) began in early 2020 to facilitate the generation of near error-free, chromosome-resolved reference genomes for all cetacean species. Towards that goal, and using the methods, goals and genome assembly quality standards of the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), we gen...

Studies on the classic shell colour and banding polymorphism of the land snail C epaea played a crucial role in establishing the importance of natural selection in maintaining morphological variation. Cepaea is also a pre‐eminent model for ecological genetics because the outward colour and banding phenotype is entirely genetically determined, primarily by a ‘supergene’ of at least five loci. Unfortunately, progress in understa...

The H eliconius butterflies are a diverse recent radiation comprising multiple levels of divergence with ongoing gene flow between species. The recently sequenced genome of H eliconius melpomene allowed us to investigate the genomic evolution of this group using dense RAD marker sequencing. Phylogenetic analysis of 54 individuals robustly supported reciprocal monophyly of H . melpomene and H eliconius cydno and refuted previou...

Biodiversity assessment is the key to understanding the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, but there is a well‐acknowledged biodiversity identification gap related to eukaryotic meiofaunal organisms. Meiofaunal identification is confounded by the small size of taxa, morphological convergence and intraspecific variation. However, the most important restricting factor in meiofaunal ecological research i...