Late Pleistocene genetic diversification and demographic expansion in the widely distributed neotropical ant Neoponera villosa (Ponerinae)

Abstract

Phylogeographic studies of continent-wide distributed species are key to understand population dynamics processes that occurred at large geographical scales. Here, we examined two mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequence (COI, Cyt b) and eight nuclear microsatellites markers to investigate the cohesiveness, genetic diversity and demographic history of Neoponera villosa (Fabricius), a ponerine ant species widely distributed along most part of the Neotropics and southern Nearctic. The reconstructed phylogeny and mt variation supported the cohesiveness of the examined populations of N. villosa. The species probably originated in South America during the late Pliocene/middle Pleistocene and subsequently dispersed to Central America and the Transitional Nearctic-Neotropical zone during the late Pleistocene, with an increase in its population size ca. 30 thousand years ago. The limited phylogeographic structure observed in N. villosa supports its late Pleistocene range expansion and gene flow among distant geographic areas in central and southern Mexico and Central America.