Frontier Bioscience - Do duplicated genes drive morphological diversity?

Begonia is one of the most specious plant genera with likely 2,000 species found throughout the tropics. Although the species are similar in floral form vegetative form varies widely across the group, including multiple independent evolutions of compound and peltate leaves. The genetic pathways regulating leaf form have been well studied in model species and we have identified orthologs of the key genes in Begonia. Due to a genome duplication early in the evolution of the Begoniacea, and to the genome dynamics typical of the group, many of the key genes are present in Begonia species as duplicated genes or small gene families