D3226: Mitochondrial phylogeny of Odonata created from target enrichment bycatch

Targeted enrichment techniques, such as anchored hybrid enrichment, have become a common tool for phylogenetic research, allowing huge quantities of highly informative data to be produced. While these research techniques tend to be employed in the pursuit of large genomic research topics, they can also provide insight into mitochondrial genomics. Due to the relatively small size of the mitochondrial genome, significant portions are often captured by off target reads (bycatch). Bycatch can make up a substantial portion of processed reads and provide a significant opportunity to expand the useful data produced by targeted enrichment techniques. Despite the small size of the mitochondrial genome, important evolutionary questions can still be investigated through its analysis. Bycatch was reviewed from previously sequenced Odonata genomic data, comprising 4800 samples and representing half of all Odonata species. MitoFinder, a pipeline designed for mitochondrial assembly, was used to assemble and annotate the reads. Mitochondrial genomes were successfully recovered from the majority of samples. From these results, a mitochondrial phylogenetic tree was constructed to allow for comparison with and augmentation of previously generated nuclear phylogenies. These results demonstrate the utility of both the mitochondrial genome, as well as off target reads. Further development of these techniques could extend into whole genome, low coverage reads, further expanding the amount of informative data produced by sequencing techniques.