Review: Key questions and challenges in angiosperm macroevolution (New Phytol)

Are you curious about why and how angiosperms, flowering plants, are the youngest lineage of land plants and have become the most abundant group of plants? You are not alone. Generations of botanists and evolutionary biologists have wondered about this same thing. Many questions have been answered, such as the evolutionary relationships between the families of angiosperms. However, many questions have not been answered. This Review by Sauquet and Magallón addresses questions like: What are the ancestors of angiosperms? How old is this group? How variable has their diversification been through time and across lineages? For most of these questions there is no good answer. For example the estimated age of angiosperms spans a timeline of 110 million years which is too broad to rely on. Evolutionary biologists are invited to coordinate a global effort to address the unanswered questions in angiosperm macroevolution.  (Summary by Jason Stettler) New Phytol. 10.1111/nph.15104