Vision in chameleons-A model for non-mammalian vertebrates

A perspective on neuroethology: what the past teaches us about the future of neuroethology

For 100 years, the Journal of Comparative Physiology-A has significantly supported research in the field of neuroethology. The celebration of the journal's centennial is a great time point to appreciate the recent progress in neuroethology and to discuss possible avenues of the field. Animal behavior is the main source of inspiration for neuroethologists. This is illustrated by the huge diversity of investigated behaviors and species. To explain behavior at a mechanistic level, neuroethologists combine neuroscientific approaches with sophisticated behavioral analysis. The rapid technological progress in neuroscience makes neuroethology a highly dynamic and exciting field of research. To summarize the recent scientific progress in neuroethology, I went through all abstracts of the last six International Congresses for Neuroethology (ICNs 2010-2022) and categorized them based on the sensory modalities, experimental model species, and research topics. This highlights the diversity of neuroethology and gives us a perspective on the field's scientific future. At the end, I highlight three research topics that may, among others, influence the future of neuroethology. I hope that sharing my roots may inspire other scientists to follow neuroethological approaches.

Efficient and Highly Continuous Chromosome-Level Genome Assembly of the First Chameleon Genome

Most amniote genomes are diploid and moderate in size (∼1-6 Gbp) and contain a large proportion of repetitive sequences. The development of next-generation sequencing technology, especially the emergence of high-fidelity (HiFi) long-read data, has made it feasible to resolve high-quality genome assembly for nonmodel species efficiently. However, reference genomes for squamate reptiles have lagged behind other amniote lineages. Here, we de novo assembled the first genome from the Chameleonidae family, the panther chameleon (Furcifer pardalis). We obtained telomere-to-telomere contigs using only HiFi data, reaching a contig N50 of 158.72 Mbp. The final chromosome-level assembly is 1.61 Gbp in size, and 100% of primary contigs were placed to pseudochromosomes using Hi-C interaction data. We also found that sequencing depth > 30 folds can ensure both the integrity and accuracy of the genome, whereas insufficient depth led to false increase in genome size and proportion of duplicated genes. We provide a high-quality reference genome valuable for evolutionary and ecological studies in chameleons as well as provide comparative genomic resources for squamate reptiles.