AVONICHE: a global dataset of dietary and foraging niches for birds
Author(s)
Sayol, Ferran
Neate‐Clegg, Montague HC
Sheard, Catherine
Pigot, Alex L
Tobias, Joseph A
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Motivation
The role of each animal species in an ecosystem is largely determined both by the resources it uses and the behaviours through which these resources are obtained. Even in well-studied vertebrate groups, like birds, quantitative data on the relative use of different food resources in the context of foraging strategies are generally lacking. Most analyses in macroecology, macroevolution and conservation biology are therefore limited to simplified dietary categories, ignoring the specific foraging behaviours and substrates used to access resources. Here we present AVONICHE, a dataset quantifying proportional membership in 32 foraging niches, representing a combination of dietary categories and associated foraging strategies used by all bird species.
Main Types of Variables Contained
Species-level information on the proportional use of foraging niches, each of which is defined as a particular foraging strategy within a specific dietary category (e.g., invertebrate feeding is subdivided into 7 foraging niches based on different foraging behaviors).
Spatial Location and Grain
Global.
Time Period and Grain
Present.
Major Taxa and Level of Measurement
All bird species (Class Aves). To allow integration with global phylogenies and other data resources published in future, we align species-level niche data with four different taxonomic treatments: BirdTree (9993 species), Clements/eBird (10,661 species), BirdLife International (10,999 species) and the new AviList taxonomy (10,981 species).
Software Format
Spreadsheet (.csv).
The role of each animal species in an ecosystem is largely determined both by the resources it uses and the behaviours through which these resources are obtained. Even in well-studied vertebrate groups, like birds, quantitative data on the relative use of different food resources in the context of foraging strategies are generally lacking. Most analyses in macroecology, macroevolution and conservation biology are therefore limited to simplified dietary categories, ignoring the specific foraging behaviours and substrates used to access resources. Here we present AVONICHE, a dataset quantifying proportional membership in 32 foraging niches, representing a combination of dietary categories and associated foraging strategies used by all bird species.
Main Types of Variables Contained
Species-level information on the proportional use of foraging niches, each of which is defined as a particular foraging strategy within a specific dietary category (e.g., invertebrate feeding is subdivided into 7 foraging niches based on different foraging behaviors).
Spatial Location and Grain
Global.
Time Period and Grain
Present.
Major Taxa and Level of Measurement
All bird species (Class Aves). To allow integration with global phylogenies and other data resources published in future, we align species-level niche data with four different taxonomic treatments: BirdTree (9993 species), Clements/eBird (10,661 species), BirdLife International (10,999 species) and the new AviList taxonomy (10,981 species).
Software Format
Spreadsheet (.csv).
Date Issued
2026-01-01
Date Acceptance
2025-12-27
Citation
Global Ecology and Biogeography, 2026, 35 (1)
ISSN
1466-822X
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Global Ecology and Biogeography
Volume
35
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2026 The Author(s). Global Ecology and Biogeography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
e70197
Date Publish Online
2026-01-07