Description: Inbreeding may initially lower population fitness by converting masked genetic load into realized load. As deleterious variants become increasingly homozygous, purifying selection acts more effectively to purge load. Nevertheless, not all populations can survive the initial fitness decline and it would be interesting to examine scenarios that facilitate their survival. Herein we assembled chromosome-level reference genomes of two paradise fishes, Macropodus hongkongensis and M. opercularis, and resequenced 109 wild individuals of 15 populations to infer the history of runs of homozygosity (ROH) formation, effectiveness of purging in ROH and the role of balancing selection in maintaining lingering polymorphisms in independently evolved small populations.

Data type: Genome sequencing and assembly; Raw sequence reads; Genome sequencing; Assembly; Transcriptome or Gene expression; Variation

Sample scope: Multispecies

Relevance: Evolution

Release date: 2025-07-11

Last updated: 2025-07-11

Data size: 1.29TB