Aim: Past glacial cycles have generated lineage diversity in alpine habitats, acting as a climate-driven species pump. It is not clear how much this process contributes to ecological diversification of alpine species. To examine this problem, we test patterns of genetic and phenotypic divergence in two co-distributed species complexes of flightless alpine ground beetles. Greater differentiation in functional traits would indicate that ecological selection is an outcome of oscillating climate change, whereas greater differentiation in non-ecological traits would indicate niche conservatism.