herbivore

The newest — described on Thursday by a team of researchers in the journal PeerJ — is Lokiceratops rangiformis, a five-ton herbivore with spectacular, curving brow horns and huge, bladed spikes on its meter-long frill.

Deprived of a primary herbivore, the reefs succumbed to algal overgrowth and never fully recovered.

Ecological theory basically says if you have a really simple food chain — like the classic example of sea otters, urchin and kelp; one plant, one herbivore and one predator — if a predator is removed then urchins will overgraze on kelp.

These volatile compounds trigger the activation of defense genes, protecting against potential herbivore threats.

The study shows that “a tight coevolutionary history” is not always necessary for this type of toxin sequestration to occur, says Paul Ode, a plant-insect herbivore ecologist at Colorado State University who wasn’t involved with the new research.