Phillip A. Morin

The paper reconstructs the demographic history of Rice's whale using whole-genome sequences and assesses its genomic health, finding long-term isolation and a recent population collapse increase extinction risk.

The paper benchmarks DNA preservation methods for long-read and long-range sequencing across vertebrates, finding that optimal methods vary by taxa, tissue, and application.

The paper generates a high-quality reference genome for the vaquita and analyzes its demographic history, revealing long-term population stability and low genetic diversity.