The Great Wanderer: The Phylogeographic History of the Bicolor Pyramid Ant ( Wheeler, 1906) in Central Veracruz, Mexico.

The goal of phylogeography is to explain how microevolutionary forces shape the gene pool of a lineage into the geography. In this study we have evaluated the amount of genetic variation in 13 populations of distributed in a mountainous region in Central Veracruz, Mexico. To do so, we sequenced fragments from the mitochondrial , , and nuclear genes. Segregated sites were found only at the mitochondrial markers, recovering a total of 21 different haplotypes. The nucleotide diversity ranged from 0 to 0.5% at the different sampling sites. Phylogenetic and spatial analyses of molecular variance revealed a weak but significant phylogeographic structure associated with lowland and mountainous zones. Molecular clock analysis suggests that radiation in the mountain area started 7500 years ago, whereas lineage radiation in the lowland started more recently, around 2700 years ago. The phylogeographic structure is incipient, with nests from lowlands more closely related to mountain nests than to other lowland nests, and vice versa. This seems to be consistent with a model of incomplete lineage sorting. The obtained patterns appear to be the result of restricted gene flow mediated by a complex topographic landscape that has been shaped by a dynamic geologic history.