ArticleNature communications2018
Macroecology and macroevolution of the latitudinal diversity gradient in ants.
Article in Nature communications, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 79 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
79 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Pooled it
- Latitudinal diversity gradients of soil seed bank and aboveground vegetation in China.Plant diversity · 2026Article
- Spatial-Scale Evolutionary Bias Sheds Light on the Latitudinal Diversity Gradient.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Conflict in ant phylogeny results from complex interaction between multiple evolutionary signals and tree reconstruction artifacts.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Diversity patterns in terrestrial tetrapod clades are governed by equilibrium dynamics.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- High-throughput phenomics of global ant biodiversity.Nature methods · 2026Article
- Larger colony sizes favour greater division of labour between queens and workers in ants.Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · 2026Article
- Different Methodologies Result in Opposite Patterns of Diversification Rates in Flowering Plants Across Latitudes.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Geographic distribution of nematodes in the Atacama is associated with elevation, climate gradients and parthenogenesis.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Global Changes in Lepidopteran Phylogenetic Diversity Across Space and Time.Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- Article
- Global Diversity Patterns are Explained by Diversification Rates and Dispersal at Ancient, Not Shallow, Timescales.Systematic biology · 2025Article
- Evaluating UCE Data Adequacy and Integrating Uncertainty in a Comprehensive Phylogeny of Ants.Systematic biology · 2025Article
- A chromosome-level genome assembly of Myrmica angulata (Hymenoptera: Formicidae).Scientific data · 2025Article
- Evolutionary history of ponerine ants highlights how the timing of dispersal events shapes modern biodiversity.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Article
- Metabolic traits are shaped by phylogenetic conservatism and environment, not just body size.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- 'Out of the Tropics' Sheds Light on Latitudinal Gradients in Clade Ages of Climbers, China.Ecology and evolution · 2025Article
- Social control drove ant evolution.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Review
19 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The latitudinal diversity gradient-the tendency for more species to occur toward the equator-is the dominant pattern of life on Earth, yet the mechanisms responsible for it remain largely unexplained. Recently, the analysis of global data has led to advances in understanding, but these advances have been mostly limited to vertebrates and trees and have not provided consensus answers. Here we synthesize large-scale geographic, phylogenetic, and fossil data for an exemplar invertebrate group-ants-and investigate whether the latitudinal diversity gradient arose due to higher rates of net diversification in the tropics, or due to a longer time period to accumulate diversity due to Earth's climatic history. We find that latitudinal affinity is highly conserved, temperate clades are young and clustered within tropical clades, and diversification rate shows no systematic variation with latitude. These results indicate that diversification time-and not rate-is the main driver of the diversity gradient in ants.
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