Ants of the World – A UCE Phylogenomics Initiative

A powerful approach for revealing evolutionary relationships among animals is the use of high-throughput sequencing and targeted enrichment of UltraConserved Elements (UCEs). Phylogenies based on UCEs reliably uncover relationships at all time depths. There are around 13,500 described species of ants in 334 genera. Through the work of research groups targeting particular taxa or regions, UCE data are currently available for 54% of genera and 13% of species. The Ants of the World project will acquire UCE data for at least 4,500 additional specimens, bringing the sequenced percentages to 96% of genera and about 45% of described species. The Ants of the World BioProject serves to link together UCE sequence data from multiple lab groups and projects over many years.