Influences of climate and historical land connectivity on ant beta diversity in East Asia

Aim Biodiversity patterns reflect both ecological and evolutionary processes interacting with geographical variation in climate and the current and historical connectivity between land areas. We sought to disentangle these effects in explaining the organization of ant diversity across geographical areas and islands in East Asia. Location The Japanese Archipelago including the Ryukyu and Ogasawara Islands, Taiwan and coastal continental regions of Korea, China and Russia. Methods We aggregated species occurrence records from published literature, specimen databases and museum records, and compiled climatic variables for islands and politically defined continental areas. Current and historic land connections in the Last Glacial Maximum were determined using bathymetric databases. We analysed factors driving patterns of Simpson composition dissimilarity using multiple regression of distance matrices (MRM). Results Temperature was the largest driver of dissimilarity among areas, with geogra...