Abstract Disentangling the influence of biotic interactions from abiotic environmental changes is a central challenge in macroevolution. While ants’ evolutionary history has been widely studied, often in relation to abiotic factors or plant associations, the role of intra- and inter-lineage interactions, whether competitive or facilitative, remains poorly understood. In this study, we use birth–death models within a Bayesian framework, integrating fossil and extant data, to investigate how inter