The Plant DNA C‐values database (release 7.1): an updated online repository of plant genome size data for comparative studies

Abstract

• In recent decades, interest in plant genome size (i.e. the total amount of DNA in the unreplicated haploid nucleus; Greilhuber et al., 2005) has been growing exponentially as the biological, evolutionary and ecological significance of this key biodiversity trait is increasingly recognized (e.g. see reviews by Greilhuber & Leitch, 2013; Pellicer et al., 2018). Such interest is no doubt, in part, underpinned by the staggering diversity of genome sizes encountered within land plants (e.g. especially angiosperms which show a range of c. 2400‐fold; Pellicer et al., 2010) and the considerable diversity in some algal clades, with the most variable being in the Chlorophyta clade of green algae, which have a range of 274‐fold. Certainly, it is now clear that genome size can have an impact at many scales, from influencing gene and genome dynamics (e.g. Dodsworth et al., 2015) to playing a role at the whole‐plant level, influencing, for example, plant growth strategies, plant community composition, plant–animal interactions, evolutionary trajectories and ecosystem dynamics (e.g. Suda et al., 2015; Guignard et al., 2016, 2019; Simonin & Roddy, 2018). In the era of fast‐evolving high‐throughput‐sequencing technologies, C‐values also provide baseline information necessary for estimating whole‐genome sequencing costs, as these are directly linked to the size of the genome (e.g. Li & Harkess, 2018).