Flowering plants, or angiosperms, consist of more than 300,000 species, far more than any other land plant lineages. The accumulated evidence indicates that multiple ancient polyploidy events occurred around 100 to 120 million years ago during the Cretaceous and drove the early diversification of four major clades of angiosperms: gamma whole-genome triplication in the common ancestor of core eudicots, tau whole-genome duplication during the early diversification of monocots, lambda whole-genome duplication during the early diversification of magnoliids, and pi whole-genome duplication in the Nymphaeales lineage. These four polyploidy events have played essential roles in the adaptive evolution and diversification of major clades of flowering plants. Here, we specifically review the current understanding of this wave of ancient whole-genome duplications and their evolutionary significance. Notably, although these ancient whole-genome duplications occurred independently, they have contributed to the expansion of many stress-related genes (e.g., heat shock transcription factors and Arabidopsis response regulators)，and these genes could have been selected for by global environmental changes in the Cretaceous. Therefore, this ancient wave of paleopolyploidy events could have significantly contributed to the adaptation of angiosperms to environmental changes, and potentially promoted the wide diversification of flowering plants.
Keywords: Nymphaeales; angiosperms; gene duplication; polyploidy.
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