Climatic niche divergence and high‐elevation adaptation promoted rapid diversification of Pimoa spiders in Pan‐Himalaya

The Pan-Himalayan region harbors exceptional biodiversity, yet the origins andunderlying mechanisms driving this remarkable diversity remain poorly understood,especially among species-rich invertebrates. Pimoa spiders exhibit an intercontinentaldisjunct distribution across three major mountain regions: the Rockies, the Alps, andthe Pan-Himalaya. Notably, in the Pan-Himalaya, Pimoa occurs at significantly higherelevations and exhibits far greater species diversity than in the other two regions, mak-ing it an ideal model for studying invertebrate diversification in this area. We integratedextensive genetic data (59 new transcriptomes and over 22 700 newly generated DNAsequences from 393 samples), along with distribution and climatic data, to explore theorigins and drivers of the rich diversity of Asian Pimoa in the Pan-Himalaya. Our find-ings indicate that Pan-Himalayan Pimoa spiders originated from widely distributedancestors in North America and Asia. During the Miocene, they dispersed southwardfrom northeast Asia to south China and the Pan-Himalaya, experiencing rapid diversi-fication. Climatic niche modeling and ancestral reconstruction analyses revealed nichedivergence between Pan-Himalayan Pimoa and their ancestors, particularly in eleva-tion and temperature. Gene selection analyses showed that high-elevation adaptationsprimarily involve enhanced energy metabolism, hypoxia resistance, and DNA repairmechanisms. These results suggest that ecological niche differentiation, high-elevationadaptation, and rapid diversification during the Miocene are crucial factors shapingthe rich diversity of Asian Pimoa in the Pan-Himalaya. Our study, which integratesgenetic, distributional, and climatic data, provides a novel framework for understand-ing invertebrate diversification in the Pan-Himalaya.