My understanding is that something very much like this is what is theorized to have kicked off a more recent 'explosion', that of angiosperms. Essentially ther

My understanding is that something very much like this is what is theorized to have kicked off a more recent 'explosion', that of angiosperms. Essentially there was some chromosome doubling which set the stage for the huge diversity and abundance of flowering plants which quickly dominated the planet. In the Wikipedia article on angiosperms it states, "The evolution of seed plants and later angiosperms appears to be the result of two distinct rounds of whole genome duplication events." I'm sure something like this is one of the more plausible triggers for the Cambrian.