Format: ORAL

Xuehao Fu1,2, Boka Li1,2,3, Tianyu Lei1,2,3, Hongyan Shan1,2, Hongzhi Kong1,2,3

1 State Key Laboratory of Plant Diversity and Specialty Crops, CAS Center for Excellence in Molecular Plant Sciences, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093, China 2 China National Botanical Garden, Beijing 100093, China 3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Ranunculaceae exhibits a remarkable diversity in genome size, floral morphology, and secondary metabolites. How these characters evolved, and to what extent the changes of genome size have contributed to the evolution of other characters, however, remain largely unclear. Here, by sequencing the genome of Nigella damascena (genome size about 10 Gb) and the transcriptomes of the other 51 species representing 37 genera of the 14 tribes, we: 1) constructed a robust and well-represented phylogenetic tree with time calibration of the Ranunculaceae, and detected two gene flows that have resulted in nuclear-cytoplasmic incompatibility; 2) explored the processes and general patterns of the evolution of genome size and other important characters; 3) revealed the mechanisms underlying the diversification of flowers in basic structure, petal shape and several phytochemical traits, and 4) discussed the roles of the changes of genome size in plant evolution