A pipeline for the de novo assembly of the Themira biloba(Sepsidae: Diptera) transcriptome using a multiple k-mer length approach

BackgroundThe Sepsidae family of flies is a model for investigating how sexual selection shapes courtship and sexual dimorphism in a comparative framework. However, like many non-model systems, there are few molecular resources available. Large-scale sequencing and assembly have not been performed in any sepsid, and the lack of a closely related genome makes investigation of gene expression challenging. Our goal was to develop an automated …