Defensive traits exhibit an evolutionary trade‐off and drive diversification in ants

Evolutionary biologists have long predicted that evolutionary trade‐offs among traits should constrain morphological divergence and species diversification. However, this prediction has yet to be tested in a broad evolutionary context in many diverse clades, including ants. Here, we reconstruct an expanded ant phylogeny representing 82% of ant genera, compile a new family‐wide trait database, and conduct various trait‐based analyses to show that...