DOI: 10.5061/dryad.1zcrjdg56
title: AVONICHE: A global dataset of dietary and foraging niches for birds

description: 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 is 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. The dataset
 includes species-level information on the proportional use of the 32
 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 behaviours).
 The data includes information for all extant 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 (9,993 species), Clements/eBird (10,661
 species), BirdLife International (10,999 species), and the new AviList
 taxonomy (10,981 species).
description: # AVONICHE: A global dataset of dietary and foraging niches for birds
 Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.1zcrjdg56](10.5061/dryad.1zcrjdg56) ##
 Description of the data and file structure The dataset includes
 species-level information on the proportional use across 32 foraging
 niches, each of which is defined as a particular foraging strategy within
 a specific dietary category. The data includes information for all extant
 bird species (Class Aves). To allow integration with a global phylogeny
 and other data resources, we align species-level niche data with four
 different taxonomic treatments: BirdTree (9,993 species), Clements/eBird
 (10,661 species), BirdLife International (10,999 species), and the new
 AviList taxonomy (10,981 species). ### Files and variables #### File
 structure The AVONICHE dataset is composed of 4 main datasets: 1.
 **Avoniche1_Birdlife2020.csv**: Dataset with quantitative information on
 dietary and foraging niches for 10,999 species following the BirdLife
 International taxonomy (version 2020). 2. **Avoniche2_eBird2021.csv**:
 Dataset with quantitative information on dietary and foraging niches for
 10,661 species following the Clements/eBird taxonomy (version 2021). 3.
 **Avoniche3_BirdTree2012.csv**: Dataset with quantitative information on
 dietary and foraging niches for 9,993 species following the BirdTree
 taxonomy (2012). 4. **Avoniche4_AviList_2025.csv**: Dataset with
 quantitative information on dietary and foraging niches for 10,981 species
 following the AviList taxonomy (2025). In addition, we also provide the
 following accompanying files: 5. **Avoniche_metadata.xlsx**: It includes a
 list of all variables from the other spreadsheets, with a description,
 variable type, and source.  6. **Crosswalk_sp1_sp2.csv**: Crosswalk
 between BirdLife (Sp1) and eBird2021 taxonomies (Sp2). 7.
 **Crosswalk_sp1_sp3.csv**: Crosswalk between BirdLife (Sp1) and BirdTree
 taxonomies (Sp3). 8. **Avoniche_Pigot2020_match.csv**: Table matching the
 names used for diet or foraging niches in Avoniche with a previous related
 dataset (Pigot et al. 2020). **Main variables included:** Each dataset
 (Sp1, Sp2, Sp3, Sp4) contains quantitative information on the usage of 9
 dietary niches and 32 foraging niches.  The 9 dietary niches include:
 Plants aquatic (Pa), Plants terrestrial (Pt), Nectar (Ne), Seeds (Se),
 Fruit (Fr), Invertebrates (In), Aquatic prey (Ap), Vertebrates (Vt) &
 Carrion (Ca). The 32 dietary niches are combinations of dietary categories
 and associated foraging strategies and include: Plants Aquatic Ground,
 Plants Aquatic Surface, Plants Aquatic Dive, Plants Elevated, Plants
 Ground, Nectar Aerial, Nectar Glean, Seeds Elevated, Seeds Ground, Fruit
 Aerial, Fruit Glean, Fruit Ground, Invertebrates Aerial Screening,
 Invertebrates Sally-to-Air, Invertebrates Sally-to-Surface, Invertebrates
 Sally-to-Ground, Invertebrates Vertical Substrate, Invertebrates Glean
 Elevated, Invertebrates Glean Ground, Aquatic Predator Air, Aquatic
 Predator Plunge, Aquatic Predator Perch, Aquatic Predator Ground, Aquatic
 Predator Surface, Aquatic Predator Dive, Vertebrates Aerial Screening,
 Vertebrates Air-to-Surface, Vertebrates Perch, Vertebrates Glean Elevated,
 Vertebrates Glean Ground, Carrion Aquatic & Carrion Ground.