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SUPER-PLOIDY. "Most flowering plant lineages have undergone multiple rounds of polyploidy in their ancestry, a process that is ongoing in many lineages. Consequently, supposedly diploid species are in fact palaeopolyploids. For example, the ‘diploid’ A. thaliana may be as high as 48-ploid, and ‘tetraploid’ cytotypes (96-ploid) exist in nature." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959437X15001057 View in LinkedIn

WHOLE GENOME DUPLICATION. "Following a WGD in the common ancestor of all extant angiosperms, a complex pattern of both ancient and recent polyploidy is evident across angiosperm phylogeny. In several cases, ancient WGDs are associated with increased rates of species diversification." http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369526616300425 View in LinkedIn

"POLYPLOIDY, or whole-genome duplication (WGD), is a ubiquitous feature of plant genomes, contributing to variation in both genome size and gene content. Although polyploidy has occurred in all major clades of land plants, it is most frequent in angiosperms." https://lnkd.in/eebDSft View in LinkedIn

PHYLOGENY OF ANGIOSPERMS. "Phylogenetic analysis of gene sequences has significantly impacted views of angiosperm relationships. Consequently, the overall phylogeny of angiosperms has been radically revised at all levels." https://lnkd.in/eZS95mc View in LinkedIn

FOSSIL RECORD. "Despite extensive technological advances in genetics, genomics, and bioinformatics, which have revolutionized plant research over the past decades, our comprehension of life on earth during such ancient times continues to rely primarily on one data source: the fossil record." https://lnkd.in/e6kp7_K View in LinkedIn

COMMONALITIES. "We identified several commonalities between animals and plants, such as the rapid evolution of sexual organs, the correlation between the rates of sequence and expression evolution, and evidence that tissue functions influence the different divergence rates of gene sequences and expression patterns." https://lnkd.in/e7nzq_s View in LinkedIn

SEX GENES. "In this study, we found that genes specifically expressed in stamen in plants (i.e., stamen, anthers, or pollen) are relatively rapidly evolving, consistent with the discovery in animals that testis-specific genes tend to evolve at the fastest rate in the genome." https://lnkd.in/e7nzq_s View in LinkedIn

SEXUAL SELECTION. "In animals, the rapid evolution of sexual organs (i.e., testis) as well as the genes involved in sexual reproduction is linked to sex-related positive selection (sexual selection), such as sperm competition. In plants, although sexual selection, such as pollen competition, may also exist, whether it is the dominant force that drives the accelerated evolution of stamen-specific genes is as yet unresolved." https://lnkd.in/e7nzq_s View in LinkedIn

STARRING ROLES. "What is the mechanism used by plants (or eukaryotes) to change quantitative balances of gene expression rapidly? Not surprisingly, relatively rapid changes in transposon content play the starring roles in our genome dominance mechanism." https://lnkd.in/bCmw3Fr View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS our venture into the evolution of flowering plants, their rapid emergence, domination of plant life, and their remarkable phenotypic adaptations and co-evolution with pollinators. Driving this success story has been the common whole genome duplication, which occurred more than once and independently. The detailed story about gene duplication is another topic for another time. View in LinkedIn