The Oz Mammals Genomics initiative: developing genomic resources for mammal conservation at a continental scale

The Australo-Papuan region has a unique mammal fauna, which faces unique threats and poses important evolutionary and ecological questions. Genomics has great potential to advance our understanding of the region's mammals and their conservation. The Oz Mammals Genomics Initiative brings together museum collections, researchers, data specialists and wildlife management agencies to comprehensively tackle rodent, bat and marsupial genomics at a continental scale. There are few published whole genomes for Australian marsupials. We are developing well-assembled genomes from a broadly representative range of marsupial taxa, to facilitate new insights into evolution and to provide reference d…