Data from: Recently-formed polyploid plants diversify at lower rates

Polyploidy, the doubling of genomic content, is a widespread feature,
especially among plants, yet its macro-evolutionary impacts are
contentious. Traditionally, polyploidy has been considered an evolutionary
dead-end, whereas recent genomic studies suggest that polyploidy has been
a key driver of macro-evolutionary success. Here we examine the
consequences of polyploidy on the time scale of genera across a diverse
set of vascular plants, encompassing hundreds of inferred polyploidization
events. Likelihood-based analyses indicate that polyploids generally
exhibit lower speciation rates and higher extinction rates than diploids,
providing the first quantitative corroboration of the dead-end hypothesis.
The increased speciation rates of diploids can, in part, be ascribed to
their capacity to speciate via polyploidy. Only particularly “fit”
lineages of polyploids may persist to enjoy longer term evolutionary
success.