Since 1990, the benthic fish species round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) has been recorded in more than 20 countries outside its native range. Major colonized waterbodies include the Danube river, the Rhine river, the Baltic Sea coast, and the Great Lakes.

Because of its success, the round goby has increasingly attracted the attention of researchers. It has become a novel model species on detoxification, alternative reproductive strategies, salinity tolerance, invasion biology, population genetics, and food web ecology. Also, its tremendous success has fascinating evolutionary implications. Five close relatives with similar ecology, and from the same native area, are also invasive, but do not even come close to the round goby colonization abilities.

The round goby was until recently a molecular black box. We have therefore sequenced and assembled the genome of the round goby using 50x coverage PacBio sequencing. Currently, we are annotating gene families and pathways related to invasion, colonization, and adaptation.

bioRxiv: https://doi.org/10.1101/708974