Project

On the short and long term establishment of polyploidy in plant evolution

Code
3F029318
Duration
01 October 2018 → 30 September 2022
Funding
Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO)
Research disciplines
  • Natural sciences
    • Plant biology
Keywords
polyploidy
 
Project description

Polyploidy, the condition where an organism possesses more than two complete sets of
chromosomes in each nucleus, presents a fascinating problem for plant evolutionary biologists. On
the one hand, polyploidy in plants is often regarded as an evolutionary dead end, while on the
other hand, evolutionary genomics research has shown that virtually all extant plants are derived from ancient polyploid ancestors, suggesting a long term evolutionary advantage. This enigma is
further exacerbated by the observation that the abundance of recent polyploids greatly exceeds
the number of inferred ancient polyploidy events. Why, if polyploidy is so common in extant
populations, do we observe such a limited amount of established polyploidy events along the
phylogeny? Interestingly, recent discoveries have shown that many of these ancient polyploidy
events have taken place during periods of severe environmental upheaval. This leads naturally to
the question whether environmental change could have enhanced short term polyploid
establishment, such that otherwise unlikely survivals took place. Increased short term
establishment however does not explain the long term evolutionary success of these polyploid
lineages. Which adaptive and neutral processes have taken place after polyploidization? How
could these have resulted in the macroevolutionary dominance of ancient polyploids? In this
research we will tackle both the problem of short and long term establishment of polyploidy in
plants.