Introduction
The taxonomic and genomic diversity Amazonia trees remains poorly understood (ter Steege et al. 2016; Cardoso et al. 2017). For many known species, foundational knowledge on taxonomy, ecology, and genetics is lacking. Taxonomic revisions and phylogenetic studies are essential to address these gaps, clarifying species delimitation, distribution, evolutionary history, and biogeography. Recent taxonomic (Romero-González and Aymard 2019; Fortes, Reis, et al. 2023; Fortes, Da Silva, et al. 2023) and phylogenetic (ter Steege et al. 2023; Fortes et al. 2025) studies on the tree genus Eperua (Leguminosae) exemplify this, leading to the recognition and naming of four new species; the publication of an updated identification key; and the revelation of new insights into the evolutionary history of the group which highlight the role of Amazonian white-sand forests and the impact of pollinator shifts on speciation and morphological diversification of this lineage. To support ongoing and future studies, we present genome assemblies for 15 of the 19 accepted Eperua species plus two closely related species of Eurypetalum, therein providing a significant contribution to the genomic resources available for tropical trees and particular the African Fabaceae.
Methods
Leaves from herbarium vouchers were used for DNA extraction and sequencing, using approximately 10-15 mg of leaf tissue per extraction. Each DNA extraction was performed using the Qiagen DNEasy genomic extraction kit using the manufacturer’s protocol. Paired-end sequencing libraries were constructed using the Illumina TruSeq kit according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Libraries were sequenced on an Illumina Hi-Seq platform in paired-end, 2 × 150bp format. The resulting fastq files were trimmed of adapter/primer sequences and low-quality regions with Trimmomatic v0.33 (Bolger et al. 2014). The trimmed sequences were assembled by SPAdes v3.15.4 (Bankevich et al. 2012), screened for foreign contaminants with FCS (Astashyn et al. 2024), followed by a finishing step using Zanfona (Kieras et al. 2021) to scaffold newly generated assemblies based on available genomes from related species. Raw sequencing reads were uploaded to the Sequence Read Archive.
Results and Data Availability
Sequencing files and scaffolded genome assemblies are available on NCBI with the accession numbers listed in Table 1.
Funding
Funding was provided by Iridian Genomes, grant# IRGEN_RG_2021-1345 Genomic Studies of Eukaryotic Taxa.
Acknowledgments
The authors are very grateful to the staff from the Field Museum of Natural History (F), Embrapa Amazônia Oriental (IAN), Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia (INPA), Kew Herbarium (K), Missouri Botanical Garden (MO), New York Botanical Garden (NY), Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (R), Jardim Botânico do Rio de Janeiro (RB), and, especially, the USA National Herbarium at the Smithsonian (US) for exsiccate samples for DNA extraction.