Molecular phylogeny of Indo‐Pacific carpenter ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae, Camponotus) reveals waves of dispersal and colonization from diverse source areas
Abstract
Ants that resemble Camponotus maculatus (Fabricius, 1782) present an opportunity to test the hypothesis that the origin of the Pacific island fauna was primarily New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Indo‐Malay archipelago (collectively known as Malesia). We sequenced two mitochondrial and four nuclear markers from 146 specimens from Pacific islands, Australia, and Malesia. We also added 211 specimens representing a larger worldwide sample and performed a series of phylogenetic analyses and ancestral area reconstructions. Results indicate that the Pacific members of this group comprise several robust clades that have distinctly different biogeographical histories, and they suggest an important role for Australia as a source of Pacific colonizations. Malesian areas were recovered mostly in derived positions, and one lineage appears to be Neotropical. Phylogenetic hypotheses indicate that the orange, pan‐Pacific form commonly identified as C. chloroticus Emery 1897 actually consists of two distantly related lineages. Also, the lineage on Hawaiʻi, which has been called C. variegatus (Smith, 1858), appears to be closely related to C. tortuganus Emery, 1895 in Florida and other lineages in the New World. In Micronesia and Polynesia the C. chloroticus‐like species support predictions of the taxon‐cycle hypothesis and could be candidates for human‐mediated dispersal.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Nov 07, 2014
- Source ID
- 10.1111/cla.12099
Entities
People
- Alan N. Andersen
- Benjamin Blanchard
- Benjamin D. Hoffmann
- Christian Rabeling
- David M. General
- Edward O. Wilson
- Eli M. Sarnat
- Evan P. Economo
- Gary D. Alpert
- Jesse E. Czekanski‐moir
- Milan Janda
- Paul Krushelnycky
- Prashant Sharma
- Ronald M. Clouse
- Ward C. Wheeler
Organizations
- American Museum of Natural History
- Czech Academy of Sciences
- Czech Science Foundation
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Harvard University
- National Science Foundation
- Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology
- University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
- University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign
- University of Michigan
- University of North Carolina at Charlotte
- University of Oklahoma
- University of the Philippines