Data from: Convergent evolution of the army ant syndrome and congruence in big-data phylogenetics

Army ants are a charismatic group of organisms characterized by a suite of
morphological and behavioral adaptations that includes obligate collective
foraging, frequent colony relocation, and highly specialized wingless
queens. This “army ant syndrome” underlies the ecological success of army
ants and its evolution has been the subject of considerable debate. It has
been argued to have arisen once or multiple times within the ant subfamily
Dorylinae. To address this question in a phylogenetic framework I
generated data from 2,166 loci and a comprehensive taxon sampling
representing all 27 genera and 155 or approximately 22% of doryline
species. Most analyses show strong support for convergent evolution of the
army ant syndrome in the Old and New World but certain relationships are
sensitive to analytics. I examine the signal present in this data set and
find that conflict is diminished when only loci less likely to violate
common phylogenetic model assumptions are considered. I also provide a
temporal and spatial context for doryline evolution with time-calibrated,
biogeographic, and diversification rate shift analyses. This study shows
that the army ant syndrome is both an example of remarkable convergence of
a complex set of traits and a case of long-term evolutionary stasis. The
sensitivity of some of the phylogenetic results underscores the need for
cautious analysis of phylogenomic data and calls for more efficient
algorithms employing better-fitting models of molecular evolution.
Congruence among results obtained using different analytics may be used to
assess robustness in phylogenomics.