Some plants have a genetic superpower that may help them survive a cataclysm

Many plants, including many species of bananas, have more than two sets of chromosomes. This can make the species more resilient to major environmental catastrophe, researchers find. Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket/ hide caption toggle caption Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket/ Most people are diploid. That is, we have two sets of chromosomes — one set from each parent. But that's not always the case for other species, especially plants. "Strawberries, for example, have eight sets of chromosomes," says Yves Van de Peer , a plant biologist at Ghent University in Belgium. This phenomenon, called polyploidy, happens when an organism has more than two sets of chromosomes stuffed into every cell — in other words, a whole genome duplication. And it appears to allow some plant species to survive episodes of extreme environmental stress, like changes in the climate. It wasn't obvious to biologists that polyploidy would necessarily be a good thing. In fact, having double the chromosomes can ultimately impact a species' survival, leading to its extinction. And yet, it's pretty common today, especially in plants. This forms what Van de Peer calls the polyploidy paradox. Why would so many plants possess a trait that makes them evolutionarily weaker? In new work published in the journal Cell , Van de Peer and his colleagues suggest an answer to the puzzle. …