The Florida stone crab, Menippe mercenaria, is an ecologically relevant species in shallow water hard-bottom environments and a target of a profitable fishery in the western Atlantic. Using low coverage short Illumina 250 bp pair-end reads sequencing, this study reports, for the first time, the genome size, mitochondrial chromosome, and nuclear repetitive elements, including microsatellites, in M. mercenaria. The average haploid genome size estimated using a k-mer approach was 33 Mbp which is smaller than the 1.76 Gbp size estimated using static cell fluorometry. The mitochondrial genome of M. mercenaria is 15,644 bp in length and comprised of 13 protein-coding genes, 2 ribosomal RNA genes, and 22 transfer RNA genes. Repetitive elements constituted ~83.5% of the nuclear genome while ~16.5% of the genome represented single- or low-copy sequences. A large portion of repetitive sequences could not be assigned to known repeat element families. Considering only annotated repetitive elements, the most ubiquitous belonged to Class I-LINE and Class I-LTR-Ty-3/Gypsy elements. A total of 66 SSRs were identified. These newly developed genomic resources will contribute to the better understanding of meta-population connectivity, hybridization with the congeneric M. adina, and putative genomic mechanisms involved in the acclimatization and adaptation to climate change of the Florida stone crab.

佛罗里达石蟹Menippe mercenaria是浅水硬底环境中的生态相关物种，也是西大西洋有利可图的渔业目标。本研究使用低覆盖率的短 Illumina 250  bp 对端读取测序，首次报告了M. mercenaria的基因组大小、线粒体染色体和核重复元件，包括微卫星。使用 k-mer 方法估计的平均单倍体基因组大小为 33 Mbp，小于使用静态细胞荧光法估计的 1.76 Gbp 大小。M. mercenaria的线粒体基因组为 15,644 bp 的长度，由 13 个蛋白质编码基因、2 个核糖体 RNA 基因和 22 个转移 RNA 基因组成。重复元素占核基因组的约 83.5%，而基因组的约 16.5% 代表单拷贝或低拷贝序列。大部分重复序列无法分配给已知的重复元件家族。仅考虑带注释的重复元素，最普遍的属于 Class I-LINE 和 Class I-LTR-Ty-3/Gypsy 元素。共鉴定出 66 个 SSR。这些新开发的基因组资源将有助于更好地了解元种群连通性、与同类M. adina 的杂交以及佛罗里达石蟹适应气候变化的假定基因组机制。