UCE phylogenomics illuminate the evolutionary history and biogeography of Dorymyrmex pyramid ants

Latitudinal diversity gradients are one of the most widely discussed patterns in global biogeography, generally in the context of high diversity in tropical regions. In contrast, \"amphitropical\" or \"inverse\" distributions, once thought to be unusual, are increasingly recognized as common among many hymenopteran insects. One such group is the ant genus Dorymyrmex, which specializes in arid habitats throughout the Americas. To evaluate when and how Dorymyrmex acquired its present-day distribution, I sequenced partial genomes of 167 Dorymyrmex representing 69 species by targeting ultra-conserved elements (UCEs). A matrix of 870 genetic loci was used to infer maximum likelihood and Bayesian phylogenies, estimate divergence dates, and reconstruct hypothesized ancestral areas. These new analyses reveal that Dorymyrmex comprises four species groups, the D. flavescens, tener, wolffhuegeli, and pyramicus groups. The D. pyramicus group likely dispersed from South America to North America only onc..., , , # UCE phylogenomics illuminate the evolutionary history and biogeography of Dorymyrmex pyramid ants

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d7wm37q9c](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.d7wm37q9c)

## Description of the data and file structure

Targeted genomic sequence data (UCEs) were assembled into contigs in SPAdes and assembled into matrices in phyluce. Each matrix was aligned in MAFFT and downsampled for computational efficiency by removing loci that violate evolutionary model assumptions using IQ-TREE --symtest-remove-bad. Matrices were cleaned in the program spruceup to trim out poor quality sequence regions, then partitioned using the SWSC-EN algorithm. Partitions were merged in IQ-TREE using ModelFinder -m TESTMERGEONLY. Resulting matrices are *LFD-185t-part* and *D-Cono-150t-part.*

Maximum likelihood phylogenies were inferred in IQ-TREE. Bayesian phylogenies were inferred in ExaBayes on the CIPRES Science Gateway. Divergence times were estimated in MCMCtree and visualized in MCMCtreeR. B...,