Evolutionary history of ponerine ants highlights how the timing of dispersal events shapes modern biodiversity

Disentangling the drivers of global biodiversity patterns is a cornerstone of biogeography that remains elusive for many diverse biological groups. Here we present a complete species-level phylogeny of the ant subfamily Ponerinae based on new genomic sequencing and taxonomic grafting. We combine results with a large-scale geographic database to explore the contribution of three main mechanisms in shaping global ponerine biodiversity patterns: time for accumulation, differences in diversification rate, and asymmetric dispersal. We show that extant ponerine ants originated in Gondwana, spread eastward across tropical bioregions, and more recently colonized temperate areas. The relative timing of colonization events was identified as the prominent driver of present-day biodiversity patterns, supporting the time for accumulation hypothesis. Conversely, differences in diversification rates and asymmetrical dispersal histories mitigated the heterogeneity in biodiversity by fueling accumulation of lineages in the least diverse bioregions. These findings suggest that tropical niche conservatism played a major role in shaping the biogeographic and evolutionary history of Ponerinae. Overall, we emphasize the importance of considering the relative timing of past dispersal events and variations in diversification rates over evolutionary time to gain a deeper understanding of Earth’s biodiversity patterns.