About the project

Living fossils are extant taxa that closely resemble related species known from the fossil record and have retained many ancestral morphological features over long evolutionary periods. Araucaria araucana, commonly known as the monkey puzzle tree, pewen, or Chilean pine, is an evergreen gymnosperm native to central and southern Chile and western Argentina. Because members of its lineage were widespread in prehistoric times and retain distinctive ancient morphological features, A. araucana is often referred to as a “living fossil.”

The species is currently classified as Endangered, with its populations threatened by factors including logging, forest fires, grazing, and environmental change. Its seeds are edible, resembling large pine nuts, and have long been harvested and consumed by Indigenous communities in Chile and Argentina. The species has also attracted interest for its potential as a food crop in other regions with suitable climates, particularly areas characterized by cool oceanic summers.

As part of a collaboration with the Plant Epigenetics Lab, led by Dr. Rodrigo Hasbún at the University of Concepción (Chile), we are currently working on the assembly and refinement of the A. araucana megagenome, estimated to be approximately 20 Gb in size. Dr. Hasbún’s group has generated high-quality sequencing data from both haploid and diploid tissues using complementary Illumina, PacBio HiFi, and Oxford Nanopore technologies.

The assembly of a genome of this size and complexity represents a considerable bioinformatic challenge. To improve and validate the assembly, the project incorporates comparative genomic information from closely related species. One of the closest extant relatives is Araucaria angustifolia, a South American Araucaria species native primarily to Brazil, for which genomic resources are publicly available. We will also compare the resulting scaffolds with chromosome-scale genomic resources from other gymnosperms.

Another particularly interesting member of the Araucariaceae is the recently discovered Wollemi pine (Wollemia nobilis), identified in southeastern Australia. The evolutionary history of these lineages reflects the ancient connections among South America, Antarctica, and Australia, which once formed part of the southern supercontinent Gondwana.

Together, these genomic and comparative resources will provide new opportunities to investigate the evolution of this remarkable lineage and establish a foundation for population genetics, conservation genomics, and the study of the genetic mechanisms underlying adaptation and resilience in A. araucana.

About the portal

The Araucaria araucana genomic portal was developed using the EasyGDB platform, created by Aureliano Bombarely and Noe Fernandez-Pozo. EasyGDB provides a framework for building and managing genomic databases and facilitates the exploration and visualization of genome annotations and associated genomic resources. See tool publication here.