ANDREA, CRISANTIALTAMMAMI, MUSAAD ABDULRAHIM2025-10-192025https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14154/76666The Red Palm Weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus, is an invasive pest that causes substantial damage to various palm tree species globally. This damage has led to a significant loss in palm tree plantations and crop production worldwide. However, the cryptic nature of this pest and the extreme weather conditions have made the current control management of this pest ineffective. Therefore, developing highly efficient strategies to overcome these obstacles is required to contain the RPW spread and crop loss. The recent advancement in genetic modification tools, especially the advent of the CRISPR-based genome engineering system, opens a new avenue for safe and sustainable strategies for pest management. However, the limited genomic sources and lack of genetic manipulation tools in RPW are barriers to developing such systems. In this work, we aimed to improve genomics sources and expand the genetic toolkit for the genetic biocontrol of the RPW. We utilised PacBio HiFi and Hi-C sequencing to construct the first full chromosome-level assembly of the RPW. This assembly produced a genome assembly of 739 Mb and 12 chromosomes with N50 of 49 Mb. The genomic coverage analysis revealed that the RPW genome comprises 10 autosomal chromosomes in addition to the X and Y sex chromosomes. Furthermore, we improved the genome annotation of the RPW using short-read RNA sequencing, which resulted in the identification of 31,642 protein-coding, 566 rRNA genes, and 5622 tRNA.256enGenomicsThesis