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

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 <i>b</i>) and eight nuclear microsatellites markers to investigate the cohesiveness, genetic diversity and demographic history of <i>Neoponera villosa</i> (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 <i>N. villosa</i>. 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 <i>N. villosa</i> supports its late Pleistocene range expansion and gene flow among distant geographic areas in central and southern Mexico and Central America.