Bumblebees take the high road: climatically integrative biogeography shows that escape from Tibet, not Tibetan uplift, is associated with divergences of present-day Mendacibombus

Abstract

Many claims that uplift of the Qinghai‐Tibetan plateau (QTP) drove the divergences of extant high‐elevation biota have recently been challenged. For Mendacibombus bumblebees, high‐elevation specialists with distributions centred on the QTP, we examine broader explanations. We extend integrative biogeography to cover multiple contributing factors by using a framework of sequential filters: 1) molecular evidence from four genes is used to estimate phylogenetic relationships, with time calibration from a published estimate; 2) spatial evidence from current distributions is combined with the phylogeny and constrained by a model of short‐distance dispersal along mountain corridors to estimate ancestral distributions by both S‐DIVA and S‐DEC analysis; 3) geological evidence from the literature is used to constrain when high mountain ranges were uplifted to become potential corridors; and 4) climatological evidence from Mendacibombus niche‐evolution reconstructions and from palaeoclimate simulations is used to constrain when habitat was suitable in key gaps within corridors. Explanations for Mendacibombus distributions can be identified that require only short‐distance dispersal along mountain corridors, commensurate with the limited dispersal ability observed for bumblebees. These explanations depend on the timing of uplift of mountain ranges, regional climate change, and climate‐niche evolution. The uplift of the QTP may have contributed to the initial Oligocene divergence of the common ancestor of Mendacibombus from other bumblebees, but for the first two thirds of the history of Mendacibombus, only a single lineage has present‐day descendants. Divergence of multiple extant Mendacibombus lineages coincided with the Late Miocene–Pliocene uplift of externally connecting mountains, combined with regional climate cooling. These changes provided greater connectivity of suitable habitat, allowing these bumblebees to disperse out of the western QTP via new high bridges, escaping along the mountain corridors of the Tian Shan and Hindu Kush ranges, reaching eventually far to the west (Iberian Peninsula) and to the north‐east (Kamchatka).