Euschistus heros
Profile
Species: Euschistus heros (brown stink bug)
Order: Hemiptera
Family: Pentatomidae
Genus: Euschistus
Commonly known as brown stink bug, Euschistus heros is Neotropical species, widespread in South America. Currently it is considered a major soybean pest in Brazil and its importance increased since 1970 when it was a rare species. It is better adapted to warmer climates as Brazilian central region and Northern Paraná. Besides soybean, this pest attacks beans, cotton, sunflower and several other plant species such as those from the families Fabaceae and Brassicaceae. Aside from cultivated species it may develop in weeds such as Euphorbia heterophylla and Acanthospermum hispidum. Its reproduction in weed species has not yet been documented under natural conditions, though.
Females lay eggs on leaves, in batches of 5-7. First instars remain on eggs and undergo the first ecdisis shortly after they start feeding. From the third instar on, nymphs become more active and disperse in the habitat. At this stage their feeding activity becomes more intense leading to damage. In all, nymphs undergo seven instars. Adults lifespan extends for 4 months and may reach 10 months. The months of November to April correspond to the period of higher pest incidence in Brazil. During autumn, individuals seek for shelters under leaves and cultural remains and undergo a diapause, a period where no feeding activity is observed and that may last up to seven months. As adults hide during this period, low mortality due to parasitoid or predator attack occurs, which favors pest survivorship until the next season.
Individuals feed sucking sap on stems and pods of its host plants. During feeding, they may infect toxins on plants which affects soybean yield due the induction of abnormal leaf physiology. As they remain on the plant harvest is hampered and leading to a disease known as mad soybean. Feeding on pods leads to seed failure and yield reduction.
Source: IRAC-online https://irac-online.org/pests/euschistus-heros/
Sample collection
Originally sourced from Brazil and sensitive to pesticides. Obtained from Prof. Chris Bass at the university of Exeter, as the original submitters of the NCBI genome.
Next Generation Sequencing
i) Illumina Hi-C Arima 150 bp paired end data:
837,623,920 reads and 125,643,588,000 bp.
Methods
Original NCBI submitted assembly was error corrected using Freebayes and curated, then scaffolded using Hi-C with Juicer and 3d-dna.
Final Results
A complete annotated 8 chromosome assembly to be deposited at NCBI by Prof. Chris Bass University of Exeter to existing project PRJNA489772.
BUSCO (Insecta odb10): C:96.7%[S:95.2%,D:1.5%],F:1.2%,M:2.1%
Scaffold No. (incl Mt): 27
N50: 200,398,599
N bases (bp): 1,469,166
Repeat: N/A
Total size (bp) (chr no.): 1,404,456,775 (8)