Macroecology and macroevolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in ants

Economo, Evan P.; Narula, Nitish; Friedman, Nicholas R.; Weiser, Michael D.; Guénard, Benoit

doi:10.1038/s41467-018-04218-4

Cited by 171 publications

(177 citation statements)

References 68 publications

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“…These results for Pheidole evolution in the post‐Oligocene connect well to results on ant diversification on deeper time‐scales (Economo et al, ), and together tell a coherent story about the evolution of latitudinal gradients in ants across scales. Most ant lineages older than 34 Ma are reconstructed to be tropical, including the Pheidole stem lineage.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

“…Once colonization of cold biomes occurred, diversification was not detectably slower. In their analysis across all ant clades, Economo et al () also found no evidence for elevated net diversification rates among clades centred in the tropics relative to those in the temperate zone, although clades are quite heterogeneous in rate, probably due to other latent biological and historical differences. It remained possible that diversification rate was correlated with latitude within the large clades, but biological differences among clades obscured this pattern.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…These hypotheses have been tested across broad taxonomic scales (e.g. birds: Jetz et al, , amphibians: Pyron & Wiens ; mammals: Buckley & Jetz, ; Rolland et al, ), and predictions of the DRH and TCH have been recently examined on the scale of all ants using a comprehensive geographic dataset (Economo, Narula, Friedman, Weiser, & Guénard, ; also see Moreau & Bell, ; Pie, ). That study found that tropical lineages are more ancient than extratropical lineages, which mainly arose since the Oligocene cooling (past 34 Myr), consistent with the TCH.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in the hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole

Economo

Huang

Fischer

et al. 2019

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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Aim The latitudinal diversity gradient is the dominant geographic pattern of life on Earth, but a consensus understanding of its origins has remained elusive. The analysis of recently diverged, hyper‐rich invertebrate groups provides an opportunity to investigate latitudinal patterns with the statistical power of large trees while minimizing potentially confounding variation in ecology and history. Here, we synthesize global phylogenetic and macroecological data on a hyperdiverse (> 1,100 species) ant radiation, Pheidole and test predictions of three general explanations for the latitudinal gradient: variation in diversification rates, tropical conservatism and ecological regulation. Location Global. Time period The past 35 million years. Major taxa studied The hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole Westwood. Methods We assembled geographic data for 1,499 species and morphospecies, and inferred a dated phylogeny for 449 species of Pheidole, including 167 species newly sequenced for this study. We tested for correlations between diversification rate and latitude with Bayesian analysis of macroevolutionary mixtures (BAMM), hidden state speciation and extinction (HiSSE), geographic state speciation and extinction (GeoSSE), and a non‐parametric method (FiSSE), evaluated evidence for richness steady state, and examined patterns of diversification as Pheidole spread around the globe. Results There was no evidence of systematic variation of net diversification rates with latitude across any of the methods. We found that Pheidole diversification occurred in bursts when new continents were colonized, followed by a slowdown in each region, but there is no evidence richness has saturated at an equilibrium in any region. Additionally, we found latitudinal affinity is moderately conserved with a Neotropical ancestor and simulations show that phylogenetic inertia alone is sufficient to produce the gradient pattern. Main conclusions Our results provide no evidence that diversification rates vary systematically with latitude. Richness is far from steady state in each region, contrary to the ecological regulation hypothesis, although there is evidence that ecological opportunity promotes diversification after colonization of new areas. The fact that niche conservatism is strong enough to produce the gradient pattern is in accord with the tropical conservatism hypothesis. Overall, these results shed light on the mechanisms underlying the emergence of the diversity gradient within the past 34 million years, complementing recent work on deeper time‐scales, and more generally contribute toward much‐needed invertebrate perspective on global biodiversity dynamics.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Evolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in the hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole

Economo

Huang

Fischer

et al. 2019

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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“…According to this hypothesis, we can expect the number of species per higher taxon in random samples to increase from the poles to the equator and, potentially, from mountain tops to mountain bases. Although the diversification rate hypothesis has not been supported by recent studies of ants (Economo, Narula, Friedman, Weiser, & Guénard, ) and marine fishes (Rabosky et al, ), an increasing trend in the species : family ratio from high to low latitude has been observed for eastern Pacific marine molluscs (Roy, Jablonski, & Valentine, ). The high heterogeneity of environmental conditions linked, for example, to mountainous environments and precipitation gradients in many terrestrial systems might limit the strength of this trend in terrestrial taxa (McClain, White, & Hurlbert, ; Rundell & Price, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Predictability of species diversity by family diversity across global terrestrial animal taxa

Zou

Werf

Liu

et al. 2020

Global Ecol Biogeogr

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Aim Although biodiversity is in sharp decline around the globe, collectiing precise information on changes in overall species richness remains extremely challenging. Efficient and reliable proxy methods are therefore needed, with the diversity of higher taxa representing one such potential proxy for species‐level diversity. Nonetheless, the stability of using this measure across different regions and animal taxa at the global scale has never been investigated thoroughly. Location Global. Time period Up to 2016. Major taxa studied Animalia. Methods We used a large global dataset containing published studies on diversity in the terrestrial Animalia to analyse the relationship between diversity at the family, genus and species level across different orders. Results Family and species diversity were positively correlated, with the strongest correlations in Diptera, Hemiptera and Coleoptera. Correlations were slightly weaker in family–species than in genus–species relationships, whereas differences were stronger in observed richness than in diversity indices. Across all taxa, family–species correlations of Shannon diversity index values were independent of sample size, and they showed limited variation across biomes for the three orders containing sufficient case studies for this analysis. Based on the Shannon diversity index, the species diversity per site increased linearly with the increase in family diversity, with an average species : family diversity index ratio of 2.5, slightly lower than the ratio of 2.7 for observed species and family richness values. Main conclusions Our study confirmed that recording family‐level diversity can be a meaningful proxy for determining species‐level diversity patterns in biodiversity studies, and trade‐offs between identification costs and retained information content need to be considered when using higher taxon surrogacy.

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“…One of these concepts examines spatial patterns of biodiversity loss of specific taxa (e.g., amphibians, reptiles, and spiders) and their drivers ("Concept 19"; Figure 6) and is used across a range of both basic and applied subdisciplines, such as ecology, microbiology, molecular biology, and agriculture. Since 2012, the publication of comprehensive, open data sets containing the spatial and temporal distribution of species from multiple taxa such as ants, birds, plants, and reef fishes (Bruelheide et al, 2018;Dornelas et al, 2018;Economo, Narula, Friedman, Weiser, & Guénard, 2018;Edgar & Stuart-Smith, 2014;Jetz, Thomas, Joy, Hartmann, & Mooers, 2012) may have altered the trajectory of interdisciplinarity for this concept. Research on this concept may have become concentrated among an increasingly smaller number of subdisciplines in biodiversity science given its restricted taxonomic scope.…”

Section: Our Analysis Identified a Number Of Concrete Examples Wherementioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of interdisciplinarity in biodiversity science

Craven

Winter

Hotzel³

et al. 2019

Ecology and Evolution

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The study of biodiversity has grown exponentially in the last thirty years in response to demands for greater understanding of the function and importance of Earth's biodiversity and finding solutions to conserve it. Here, we test the hypothesis that biodiversity science has become more interdisciplinary over time. To do so, we analyze 97,945 peer‐reviewed articles over a twenty‐two‐year time period (1990–2012) with a continuous time dynamic model, which classifies articles into concepts (i.e., topics and ideas) based on word co‐occurrences. Using the model output, we then quantify different aspects of interdisciplinarity: concept diversity, that is, the diversity of topics and ideas across subdisciplines in biodiversity science, subdiscipline diversity, that is, the diversity of subdisciplines across concepts, and network structure, which captures interactions between concepts and subdisciplines. We found that, on average, concept and subdiscipline diversity in biodiversity science were either stable or declining, patterns which were driven by the persistence of rare concepts and subdisciplines and a decline in the diversity of common concepts and subdisciplines, respectively. Moreover, our results provide evidence that conceptual homogenization, that is, decreases in temporal β concept diversity, underlies the observed trends in interdisciplinarity. Together, our results reveal that biodiversity science is undergoing a dynamic phase as a scientific discipline that is consolidating around a core set of concepts. Our results suggest that progress toward addressing the biodiversity crisis via greater interdisciplinarity during the study period may have been slowed by extrinsic factors, such as the failure to invest in research spanning across concepts and disciplines. However, recent initiatives such as the Intergovernmental Science‐Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) may attract broader support for biodiversity‐related issues and hence interdisciplinary approaches to address scientific, political, and societal challenges in the coming years.

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Macroecology and macroevolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in ants

Cited by 171 publications

References 68 publications

Evolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in the hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole

Evolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in the hyperdiverse ant genus Pheidole

Predictability of species diversity by family diversity across global terrestrial animal taxa

Evolution of interdisciplinarity in biodiversity science

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