Sylvia P. Kinosian

Sep 25, 2024 | biorxiv.org | Zheng Li |Sylvia P. Kinosian |Shing Hei Zhan |Michael Barker

AbstractA longstanding question in plant evolution is why ferns have many more chromosomes than angiosperms. The leading hypothesis proposes that ferns have ancient polyploidy without chromosome loss or gene deletion to explain the high chromosome numbers of ferns. Here, we test this hypothesis by estimating ancient polyploidy frequency, chromosome evolution, protein evolution in meiosis genes, and patterns of gene retention in ferns.