Data from: Impact of climate changes from Middle Miocene onwards on evolutionary diversification in Eurasia: insights from the mesobuthid scorpions

The aridification from Middle Miocene onwards has transformed the Asian
interior into an arid environment, and the Pleistocene
glacial–interglacial oscillations exerted further ecological impact.
Therefore, both aridification and glaciation would have considerably
influenced the evolution of many mid-latitude species in temperate Asia.
Here, we tested this perspective by a phylogeographic study of the
mesobuthid scorpions across temperate Asia using one mitochondrial and
three nuclear genes. Concordant mitochondrial and nuclear gene trees were
obtained, which are consistent with species tree inferred using a Bayesian
approach. The age of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) of all the
studied scorpions was estimated to be 12.49 Ma (late Middle Miocene);
Mesobuthus eupeus diverged from the clade composing Mesobuthus caucasicus
and Mesobuthus martensii in early Late Miocene (10.21 Ma); M. martensii
diverged from M. caucasicus at 5.53 Ma in Late Miocene. The estimated MRCA
ages of M. martensii and the Chinese lineage of M. eupeus were 2.37 and
0.68 Ma, respectively. Central Asia was identified as the ancestral area
for the lineage leading to M. martensii and M. caucasicus and the Chinese
lineage of M. eupeus. The ancestral habitat of the genus Mesobuthus is
likely to have been characterized by an arid environment; a shift towards
more humid habitat occurred in the MRCA of M. martensii and a lineage of
M. caucasicus, finally leading to the adaptation of M. martensii to humid
environment. Our data strongly support the idea that the stepwise
intensified aridifications from Mid-Miocene onwards drove the
diversification of mesobuthid scorpions, and suggest that M. martensii and
M. eupeus observed today in China originated from an ancestral lineage
distributed in Central Asia. Both the colonization and the ensuing
evolution of these species in East Asia appear to have been further
moulded by Quaternary glaciations.