Relative to its size, tropical Asia is likely to be the richest region in terms of biodiversity. However, the factors of species diversity formation and maintenance in Southeast (SE) Asia and neighboring regions remain poorly understood. Here we infer the evolutionary relationships within psilodercid spiders by incorporating fossil information into a robust, unprecedentedly complete species‐level phylogeny of 202 extant species to explore potential abiotic drivers and ecological features underlying their stable diversification history. The combination of extant and extinct historical biogeographic data indicates that in situ speciation is the predominant form of diversification in tropical Asia but diverse Cretaceous psilodercids in Myanmar ambers were replaced by other biogeographical lineages during the northward movements of the Burma Terrane. Furthermore, our diversification analyses show no diversification rate changes through time and across geographic space in this family, but the genus Althepus displays an accelerated rate of species diversification driven by the remarkable expansion of leg length. Trait evolution analysis shows that ecological trait divergence contributes to the diversification and accumulation of tropical spiders by facilitating species coexistence. These findings provide empirical evidence that the ecological trait divergence over evolutionary time scales is key to forming species diversity hotspots in SE Asia. Thus, this study integrating molecular evidence and paleontological interpretation provides a new framework for understanding the evolution of tropical species diversity.

中文翻译：

---

进化时间上的生态性状差异是热带蜘蛛多样性起源和维持的基础


相对于其面积，热带亚洲可能是生物多样性最丰富的地区。然而，东南亚及邻近地区物种多样性形成和维持的因素仍然知之甚少。在这里，我们通过将化石信息整合到 202 个现存物种的强大、前所未有的完整物种级系统发育中来推断 psilodercid 蜘蛛内部的进化关系，以探索其稳定多样化历史的潜在非生物驱动因素和生态特征。现存和已灭绝的历史生物地理数据相结合表明，原位物种形成是热带亚洲多样化的主要形式，但在缅甸 Terrane 北移期间，缅甸琥珀中多样化的白垩纪 psilodercids 被其他生物地理谱系所取代。此外，我们的多样化分析表明，该科的多样化率不随时间和地理空间而变化，但 Althepus 属显示出由于腿长的显着扩大而加速的物种多样化速度。性状进化分析表明，生态性状分化通过促进物种共存促进热带蜘蛛的多样化和积累。这些发现提供了实证证据，表明进化时间尺度上的生态性状差异是形成东南亚物种多样性热点的关键。因此，本研究将分子证据与古生物学解释相结合，为理解热带物种多样性的演变提供了新的框架。