Dietary characterization of terrestrial mammals
Open accessAbstract
Understanding the feeding behaviour of the species that make up any ecosystem is essential for designing further research. Mammals have been studied intensively, but the criteria used for classifying their diets are far from being standardized. We built a database summarizing the dietary preferences of terrestrial mammals using published data regarding their stomach contents. We performed multivariate analyses in order to set up a standardized classification scheme. Ideally, food consumption percentages should be used instead of qualitative classifications. However, when highly detailed information is not available we propose classifying animals based on their main feeding resources. They should be classified as generalists when none of the feeding resources constitute over 50% of the diet. The term ‘omnivore’ should be avoided because it does not communicate all the complexity inherent to food choice. Moreover, the so-called omnivore diets actually involve several distinctive adaptations. Our dataset shows that terrestrial mammals are generally highly specialized and that some degree of food mixing may even be required for most species.
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Understanding and accessing accurate information about the feeding behavior of different species can provide data for ecomorphology studies and food-web modeling.
“Understanding and accessing accurate information about the feeding behavior of different species can provide data for ecomorphology studies and food-web modeling (Pineda-Munoz and Alroy 2014).”
From Digestive anatomy and diet of free-ranging maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) (2025) · cites this paper as Pineda-Munoz and Alroy 2014
Analysis of stomach contents allows for a more accurate evaluation of consumed items compared to fecal analyses, given that the items can be better identified since they have been exposed to much less digestive action, and easily-digestible foods may not be present in feces.
“Another alternative for diet assessment is the analysis of stomach contents, a more invasive method since it requires deceased individuals; however, it allows for a more accurate evaluation of consumed items compared to fecal analyses, given that the items can be better identified since they have been exposed to much less digestive action, and easily-digestible foods may not be present in feces (B”
From Digestive anatomy and diet of free-ranging maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus) (2025) · cites this paper as Pineda-Munoz and Alroy 2014
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Digestive anatomy and diet of free-ranging maned wolf (Chrysocyon brachyurus)
Silva, B. C., de Oliveira, L. A., Clauss, M., Costa, C. G., de Oliveira Marques Alexandre, L., & Duque-Correa, M. J. (2025) · Mammalian Biology · doi:10.1007/s42991-025-00493-z · Cited by 2 · see citing works
“…for a more accurate evaluation of consumed items compared to fecal analyses, given that the items can be better identified since they have been exposed to much less digestive action, and easily-digestible foods may not be present in feces (Balestrieri et al. 2011; Pineda-Munoz and Alroy 2014).”
- Authors
- Pineda-Munoz, S., & Alroy, J.
- Affiliations
- Department of Biological Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales 2109, Australia
- Macquarie University (AU)
- ORCID
- Alroy, John
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2014-08-22
- Volume
- 281
- Issue
- 1789
- Pages
- 20141173
- ISSN
- 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
- 0962-8452
- 1471-2954
- PMC
- PMC4100522
- OpenAlex
- W2082373753
- Cited by
- 117
- References
- 32
- Citations by year
- 2026: 7 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 2.89
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Animal Ecology and Behavior Studies
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Wildlife Ecology and Conservation
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Evolution and Paleontology Studies
- Keywords
- terrestrial mammals, diet classification, feeding behaviour, stomach contents, food choice, dietary specialization, generalist diet, omnivory, food mixing
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Feces, Feeding Behavior, Fruit, Invertebrates, Mammals, Seeds, Multivariate Analysis, Cluster Analysis, Ecosystem, Gastrointestinal Tract, Herbivory, Carnivory
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