text: Ehrlich and Raven's paper was highly influential on a generation of biologists and contributed to the explosion of research on plant-insect interactions and chemical ecology. The theory of escape and radiate coevolution purports to explain why we see such vast biological diversity on earth. After the organism escapes, it then radiates into multiple species, and spreads geographically. Evidence of escape and radiate coevolution can be seen through the starburst effect in plant and herbivore clades. When analyzing clades of predator-prey associations, although it varies, the starburst effect is a good indicator that escape and radiate coevolution may be occurring. Eventually this cycle must come to an end because adaptations that entail costs (such as allocation of resources, or vulnerability to other predators) at some point outweigh their benefits.
  Escape and radiate coevolution may support parallel cladogenesis, wherein plant and herbivore phylogenies might match with ancestral insects exploiting ancestral plants. This is significant because it allows researchers to hypothesize about the relationships between ancestral organisms.  Unfortunately, there have not yet been any known examples specifically involving escape and radiate coevolution being used for hypothesizing ancestral relationships.
  Many times the organism that has "escaped" continuously undergoes selective pressure because the predator it has escaped from evolves to create another adaptation in response, causing the process to continue. These "offensive" traits developed by predators range widely. For example, herbivores can develop an adaptation that allows for improved detoxification which allow to overcome plant defenses, thus causing escape and radiate coevolution to continue. Often the term "evolutionary arms race" is used to illustrate the idea that continuous evolution is needed to maintain the same relative fitness while the two species are coevolving. This idea also ties in with the Red Queen hypothesis. Counter adaptations among two organisms through escape and radiate coevolution is a major driving force behind diversity.
  Escape and radiate coevolution produces much more biological variation than other evolutionary mechanisms. For instance, cospeciation is important for diversity amongst species that share a symbiotic relationship, however this does not create nearly as much diversity in comparison to reciprocal evolutionary change due to natural selection.
  Evidence of rapid diversification following a novel adaptation is shown through the evolution of resin and latex canal tubes in 16 different lineages of plants. Plants with resin or latex canals can easily defend themselves against insect herbivores. When lineages of canal bearing plants are compared to the lineages of canal free plants, it is apparent that canal bearing plants are far more diverse, supporting escape and radiate coevolution.