Polyploidy Linked to Plant Survival During Past Climate Crises

A new study published in *Cell* examined 470 sequenced flowering-plant genomes and identified whole-genome duplication (WGD) events that are not randomly distributed in time. The authors found that WGDs cluster during periods of major climatic change over the last 150 million years, including cooling and warming episodes and the asteroid impact 66 million years ago that eliminated most dinosaurs and over half of plant species. The timing suggests polyploidy may have acted as a survival mechanism during these crises.

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Polyploidy refers to organisms possessing more than two sets of chromosomes; strawberries, for example, have eight sets. While extra chromosomes can slow cell division and increase mutation risk—potentially leading to extinction—polyploid plants are abundant today, creating a “polyploidy paradox.” The study proposes that the paradox resolves when polyploidy provides an advantage under extreme environmental stress, allowing lineages to persist while diploid relatives perish.

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The analysis of 470 flowering-plant genomes revealed whole-genome duplications across a 150-million-year span, with clusters during at least three major climatic intervals, especially around the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (~66 Mya).

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The findings imply that polyploid plants may be better equipped to cope with contemporary climate change. Extra gene copies can enhance photosynthetic efficiency under low light and improve tolerance to temperature fluctuations. Plant breeders, such as Sandra Pitta of Argentina’s CONICET, see potential to harness polyploidy for developing crops that withstand drought, heat, and other stresses.

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Lead author Yves Van de Peer of Ghent University described the pattern as “a large-scale mutational event” that provides an “insurance policy” for plants facing extreme turmoil. He noted that most polyploid lineages eventually shed extra chromosomes, yet the ancient duplication remains detectable in descendant genomes. Sandra Pitta of Argentina’s CONICET called the paper “very rigorous” and emphasized its relevance for breeding programs targeting stress-resilient varieties.

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• “they do not occur randomly. They are clustered in time.” — Yves Van de Peer

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• “The paper really is very rigorous,” — Sandra Pitta, CONICET

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• “I feel like I can retire now because this is the culmination of 25 years of work,” — Yves Van de Peer

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The study does not quantify the survival advantage of polyploid plants relative to diploids, nor does it address how many ancient WGDs have been lost over time. Empirical data on fitness under current climate scenarios remain absent.

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Future work will likely test polyploidy’s stress tolerance in controlled experiments and integrate duplication markers into breeding pipelines. Monitoring how modern polyploid crops respond to ongoing climate shifts will determine the practical value of the ancient genomic “insurance policy.”

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