You are currently viewing the summary.
View Full TextLog in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
More options
Download and print this article for your personal scholarly, research, and educational use.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.
Summary
The 330,000-odd species in the order Coleoptera--the beetles--far exceed the number in any other plant or animal group, and on page 555 an evolutionary entomologist hands the credit for this diversity to the beetles' own fondness for a leafy diet. His research shows that the appearance of flowering plants some 100 million years ago set leaf-eating beetles on speciation's fast track as the first "colonizers" of a new, unoccupied land, in what he calls "a classic case of coevolution."