Hypothesis-driven biogeography to estimate rates and dates for an ancient, Holarctic genus of spider (Araneae: Antrodiaetidae: Antrodiaetus) when fossil evidence is scarce
Understanding when lineages diverged is a common inquiry within the field of biogeography and often requires a rate of evolution and a means to calibrate the phylogeny to absolute time, with fossil evidence being the most common. Alternatively, one could estimate a molecular rate more specific to a group. Furthermore, one can also employ geological events to calibrate the phylogeny, especially when lineages have a poor fossil record. In this paper, we test the effectiveness of biogeographic hypotheses to overcome a poor fossil record in a group of spiders whose evolution is strongly impacted by abiotic forces. We estimate a molecular evolutionary rate from an optimized dataset of phylogenomic loci that has been shown to be highly informative in mygalomorph spider systematics (i.e., tarantulas and trapdoor spiders). Our estimate suggests divergences between some species that correlate with previous hypotheses, and propose novel deeper estimates of splits for others. This research broadens our knowledge of mygalomorph evolutionary rates and answers questions about the evolutionary history of a relatively old lineage of folding-door spider, Antrodiaetus (Antrodiaetidae, Mygalomorphae).