Relationship between lotic odonate communities, waterway width, and habitat integrity in the mountains and piedmont of South Carolina, USA
First genomic insights into an Aeshnidae dragonfly: unveiling the genome of a Holarctic species, Aeshna juncea 00
Ethan Tolmana✉️ 
, Dean Bobob , Paul B. Frandsenc , Göran Sahlénd , Melissa Toupse , Jessica L. Waref , Manpreet Kohlig✉️
- Department of Biological Science. Virginia Tech, Blacksburg VA, USA; Department of Invertebrate Zoology. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA
- Institute for Comparative Genomics. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA; Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Environmental Biology. Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
- Department of Plant and Wildlife Sciences and Bean Life Science Museum, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, USA
- Ecology and Environmental Science, School of Business, Innovation and Sustainability, Halmstad University, Sweden
- Department of Biology, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, USA
- Department of Invertebrate Zoology. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA
- Baruch College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York, New York, NY, USA; Department of Invertebrate Zoology. American Museum of Natural History, New York, NY, USA
International Journal of Odonatology, Volume 28, Pages 187-193, 2025
https://doi.org/10.48156/1388.2025.1917355
Published: 27 November 2025 (Received: 22 July 2025, Accepted: 14 November 2025)
Abstract
Temperature oscillations in the Arctic may present a unique opportunity to study how insect species respond to such changes. Aeshna juncea, a Holarctic species of the family Aeshnidae thrives in this environment; molecular adaptations that allow it to survive in the Arctic have yet to be evaluated. Here, we present the first assembled and annotated draft genome assembly and annotation of A. juncea. The assembly is both highly contiguous and complete. This resource is presented and used here to provide further evidence that transposons and unclassified repetitive elements are a major driver behind genome size variation in Odonata and show that the effective population size of A. juncea populations from Alaska went through bottlenecks during the most recent ice age. We believe this genome will be an important resource in understanding how species like A. juncea survive in Arctic habitats.
Keywords: Cold tolerance, comparative genomics, epiprocta, evolutionary ecology, repetitive elements
Issue section: Original Article
Supplemental Material
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