Data from: Taller plants have lower rates of molecular evolution

Rates of molecular evolution have a central role in our understanding of
many aspects of species’ biology. However, the causes of variation in
rates of molecular evolution remain poorly understood, particularly in
plants. Here we show that height accounts for about one-fifth of the
among-lineage rate variation in the chloroplast and nuclear genomes of
plants. This relationship holds across 138 families of flowering plants,
and when accounting for variation in species richness, temperature,
ultraviolet radiation, latitude and growth form. Our observations can be
explained by a link between height and rates of genome copying in plants,
and we propose a mechanistic hypothesis to account for this—the ‘rate of
mitosis’ hypothesis. This hypothesis has the potential to explain many
disparate observations about rates of molecular evolution across the tree
of life. Our results have implications for understanding the evolutionary
history and future of plant lineages in a changing world.