The research program of the Labandeira Laboratory encompasses diverse approaches involving an investigation of the fossil record of insects, plants, and their associations. The principal directions of this research are: (1) the role that the origin and radiation of novel plant groups and attendant trophic resources had on plant-dependent insects; (2) the short-term to long-term impact that instantaneous extinction events had on the associations between plants and insects; (3) the consequences that more geochronologically prolonged changes in global climate had on insect herbivory patterns and strategies via changes in vegetation composition and structure; and (4) documentation of the dynamics of specific associations between plant-host species and their dependent insect-herbivore species during long stretches of geologic time. These data are being integrated with complementary studies by evolutionary biologists for formulating a more complete, historical perspective regarding how the two most diverse terrestrial groups of organisms have associated in time to generate the bewildering diversity of associations we see today.