Plant Genome Evolution and Duplication: Current Knowledge and Perspectives.

Building on a rich history of research into polyploidy and its consequences, a seminal and recurring finding of the genome sequencing era has been that angiosperms have experienced genome duplication at a singularly high rate throughout their evolution.  Early hints of paleo-duplication from cytological and DNA marker evidence have been corroborated and elaborated into genome-wide pictures of much of the history of plant genome evolution.  Paleo-duplication offers potential for evolutionary innovation on a massive scale that is sometimes realized, although curiously some striking innovations of entire pathways have occurred by series of duplications of single genes.  Consequences of at least one 70-million-year old paleo-duplication remain ongoing, and may be an under-appreciated element of plant population genetics.