Systematics and speciation of ants in the ecologically important but taxonomically difficult Monomorium rothsteini Forel species complex

Monomorium is a highly abundant, widespread and diverse genus of ants. Several Australian “species” show considerable morphological and chemical variation and evidence from ecological and preliminary molecular research suggests significant cryptic diversity. However, rigorous morphological diagnoses that support separate species have proved difficult. This project will generate a phylogeny for the Australian Monomorium species using multiple mitochondrial and nuclear gene sequence data. In addition, a phylogeny of the M. “rothsteini” species complex will be produced and the species delimited using a combination of gene sequences, morphology, distributional data and ecology. Species descriptions and identification tools (key, diagrams and images) that enable identification of species within the complex will be generated. Findings from this analysis are likely to indicate the extent of speciation in many other difficult species complexes within the genus.