Phylogenomics indicates Amazonia as the major source of Neotropical swarm-founding social wasp diversity

The Neotropical realm harbors unparalleled species richness and hence has
challenged biologists to explain the cause of its high biotic diversity.
Empirical studies to shed light on the processes underlying biological
diversification in the Neotropics are focused mainly on vertebrates and
plants, with little attention to the hyperdiverse insect fauna. Here, we
use phylogenomic data from ultraconserved element (UCE) loci to
reconstruct for the first time the evolutionary history of Neotropical
swarm-founding social wasps (Hymenoptera, Vespidae, Epiponini). Using
maximum likelihood, Bayesian, and species tree approaches we recovered a
highly resolved phylogeny for epiponine wasps. Additionally, we estimated
divergence dates, diversification rates, and the biogeographic history for
these insects in order to test whether the group followed a “museum”
(speciation events occurred gradually over many millions of years) or
“cradle” (lineages evolved rapidly over a short time period) model of
diversification. The origin of many genera and all sampled extant
Epiponini species occurred during the Miocene and Plio-Pleistocene.
Moreover, we detected no major shifts in the estimated diversification
rate during the evolutionary history of Epiponini, suggesting a relatively
gradual accumulation of lineages with low extinction rates. Several lines
of evidence suggest that the Amazonian region played a major role in the
evolution of Epiponini wasps. This spatio-temporal diversification
pattern, most likely concurrent with climatic and landscape changes in the
Neotropics during the Miocene and Pliocene, establishes the Amazonian
region as the major source of Neotropical swarm-founding social wasp
diversity.