ArticleEvolution letters2019
Evolution of diet across the animal tree of life.
Article in Evolution letters, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 56 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dietary Utilization Drives the Differentiation of Gut Bacterial Communities between Specialist and Generalist Drosophilid Flies.Microbiology spectrum · 2022Pooled it
- Feeding biomechanics in vertebrates and beyond.Anatomical record (Hoboken, N.J. : 2007) · 2026Article
- Determinants of Smooth-coated Otter (Ecology and evolution · 2026Article
- From Mud to Meat: Comparative Metabarcoding Reveals Two Different Evolutionary Paths to Carnivory in a Group of Meiofaunal Annelids.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Recent extinctions of plant and animal genera are rare, localized, and decelerated.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Comparative gut microbiome research through the lens of ecology: theoretical considerations and best practices.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2025Review
- Mammalian Species-Specific Resistance to Mammary Cancer.Journal of mammary gland biology and neoplasia · 2025Review
- Convergent Evolution and Predictability of Gene Copy Numbers Associated with Diets in Mammals.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- The rise of dietary diversity in coral reef fishes.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Article
- Next Generation Sequencing Revolutionizes Organismal Biology Research in Bats.Journal of molecular evolution · 2023Review
- Article
- The Evolution of Glycoside Hydrolase Family 1 in Insects Related to Their Adaptation to Plant Utilization.Insects · 2022Article
- Evolutionary transitions in diet influence the exceptional diversification of a lizard adaptive radiation.BMC ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- On the evolution of trophic position.Ecology letters · 2021Article
- Large-scale evolution of body temperatures in land vertebrates.Evolution letters · 2021Article
- Do mutualistic interactions last longer than antagonistic interactions?Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Comparative analysis of mite genomes reveals positive selection for diet adaptation.Communications biology · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
What an animal eats is a fundamental aspect of its biology, but the evolution of diet has not been studied across animal phylogeny. Here, we performed a large-scale phylogenetic analysis to address three unresolved questions about the evolution of animal diets. (i) Are diets conserved across animal phylogeny? (ii) Does diet influence rates of species proliferation (diversification) among animal phyla? (iii) What was the ancestral diet of animals and major animal clades? We analyzed diet data for 1087 taxa, proportionally sampled among animal phyla based on the relative species richness of phyla. Our survey suggests that across animals, carnivory is most common (∼63%), herbivory less common (∼32%), and omnivory relatively rare (∼3%). Despite considerable controversy over whether ecological traits are conserved or labile, we found strong conservatism in diet over extraordinarily deep timescales. We found that diet is unrelated to rates of species diversification across animal phyla, contrasting with previous studies showing that herbivory increased diversification within some important groups (e.g., crustaceans, insects, and mammals). Finally, we estimated that the ancestor of all animals was most likely carnivorous, as were many major phyla (e.g., arthropods, molluscs, and chordates). Remarkably, our results suggest that many carnivorous species living today may have maintained this diet through a continuous series of carnivorous ancestors for >800 million years.
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