Phylogeny of the Ants: Diversification in the Age of Angiosperms
Corrie S. Moreau,1*
Charles D. Bell,2
Roger Vila,1
S. Bruce Archibald,1
Naomi E. Pierce1
We present a large-scale molecular phylogeny of the ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae), based on 4.5 kilobases of sequence data from six gene regions extracted from 139 of the 288 described extant genera, representing 19 of the 20 subfamilies. All but two subfamilies are recovered as monophyletic. Divergence time estimates calibrated by minimum age constraints from 43 fossils indicate that most of the subfamilies representing extant ants arose much earlier than previously proposed but only began to diversify during the Late Cretaceous to Early Eocene. This period also witnessed the rise of angiosperms and most herbivorous insects.
1 Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University, 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
2 School of Computational Science, Florida State University, 150-R Dirac Science Library, Tallahassee, FL 32306–4120, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: cmoreau{at}oeb.harvard.edu
