Model for MITEs in shaping the miRNA repertoires in angiosperm. MITEs predispose the miRNA portfolio in angiosperm through processes I–VI. Bursts of the Mutator, Tc1/Mariner, and PIF/Harbinger MITE families in angiosperms (I) increase the frequency of appropriately sized MITEs to transpose into introns (II). These MITEs hitchhike host gene transcription (III), allowing TIR-seeded regions of the resulting transcripts to fold into hairpin structures recognized by the Dicer-like complex to generate de novo miRNAs (IV). The novel MITE-miRNAs preferentially regulate target genes with biological functions related to responses to environmental stimuli (V) and may thus facilitate plant adaptation to the environment (VI). In certain cases, selection of a miRNA might have a collateral selection of the host gene as a non-coding miRNA precursor through pseudogenization (V´).