Abstract
Polyploidy is a major driver of evolution in plants. Angiosperms have undergone several polyploidization events in their evolutionary history (Leebens-Mack et al., 2019, Van De Peer et al., 2017) and polyploidy is an important factor causing speciation and influencing diversification of flowering plants (Abbott et al., 2013, Soltis et al., 2014b).
However, the processes of evolutionary origin, establishment, speciation and post-origin evolution of polyploid plants are still not wellunderstood. Furthermore, most research on polyploids is performed on few model taxa or on crop plants.
Overcoming the gap between cultivated model organisms and natural systems is crucial for a complete understanding of polyploid evolution. Here we present a symposium on polyploid evolution in wild plants including 10 case studies that can be grouped around three major themes: first, origins and evolutionary histories of polyploids; second, aspects of genome evolution in polyploids; and third, the relationships between polyploidy and biogeography and ecology.