UCEs for a forest-dwelling Aotearoa harvester genus (Arachnida, Triaenonychidae: Algidia)

The archipelago of Aotearoa displays both high biodiversity and a dynamic geologic history shaped by constantly shifting coastlines and the dramatic effects of glacial cycling on forest cover across the islands. This geographic history has important implications for the evolution of dispersal-limited forest-dwelling arthropods such as Opiliones. We utilize an integrative phylobiogeographic approach, incorporating target enrichment sequence capture of ultra-conserved elements, divergence dating, algorithmic species delimitation, and ecological niche models, to shed light on the evolutionary history of the triaenonychid harvester genus Algidia. Our genomic data in conjunction with divergence dating find evidence of high geographic structure and the influence of multiple key geologic events in the natural history of Aotearoa, including the origination and continuation of the Alpine Fault, marine transgression during the Oligocene, and cycles of glaciation and orogeny that characterized the Pliocene and Pleistocene on the islands. Our results recover ten putative species, including four that are undescribed. Paleoclimate modeling of the Last Glacial Maximum reflects geographic changes to Aotearoa's coastline which potentially underpin the modern distributions of Algidia including land bridges in the place of the current marine straits Raukawa Moana and Te Ara-a-Kiwa. Diversification of Algidia predates the Oligocene Marine Transgression lending support to the now well-established hypothesis that Aotearoa was not fully submerged during the Oligocene. The Alpine Fault seems to be an important feature explaining cladogenesis and diverging populations including for species found across Raukawa Moana. However other phenomena are also important explanatory factors in species distributions across Aotearoa.