Diets of the introduced domestic cat (Felis catus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and dingo (Canis familiaris) in Australia

The introduction of the domestic cat and the red fox has devastated Australian native fauna. We synthesised Australian diet analyses to identify traits of prey species in cat, fox, and dingo diets, which prey was more frequent or distinctive to the diet of each predator, and quantified dietary overlap. Nearly half (45%) of all Australian terrestrial mammal, bird, and reptile species occurred in the diets of one or more predators. Cat and dingo diets overlapped the least (0.64±0.27, n=24 location/time points) and the cat diet changed little over 55 years of study. Cats were more likely to have eaten birds, reptiles, and small mammals than foxes or dingoes. The dingo's diet remained constant over 53 years and constituted the largest mammal, bird, and reptile prey, including more macropods/potoroids, wombats, monotremes, and bandicoots/bilbies than cats or foxes. Fox diet had greater overlap with both cats (0.79±0.20, n=37) and dingoes (0.73±0.21, n=42), fewer distinctive items (plant mate..., We systematically searched the literature for empirical data on the frequency of occurrence (FOO; the proportion of all samples that contain the diet item) of foods consumed by each of the three predator species and traced all citations for further potential sources, including journal articles, book chapters, theses, unpublished reports, and contacted authors directly where possible for clarification and additional data. For the 157 studies using classical morphological methods (macro and microhistology) to identify diet items, we calculated FOO data for 421 location–time point combinations for 264 sites across Australia for:
(i) 7 main food categories: all mammals (summed), birds, squamate reptiles (‘squamates’), amphibians (frogs), fish, invertebrates and plant material, and
(ii) 15 broad mammal taxonomic groups: 
- Nine native mammal taxonomic groups – dasyurids (Family Dasyuridae); possums and gliders (Suborder Phalangerida); macropods and potoroids (Suborder Macropodiformes); ..., , # Diets of the introduced domestic cat (Felis catus), red fox (Vulpes vulpes) and dingo (Canis familiaris) in Australia

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.612jm646j](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.612jm646j)

## Description of the data and file structure

**Distinctive diets of eutherian predators in Australia**

We synthesised Australian diet analyses to identify traits of prey species in cat, fox and dingo diets, which prey were more frequent or distinctive to the diet of each predator, and quantified dietary overlap.

### Files and variables

#### File: Appendix_of_studies.xlsx, Appendix_of_studies.csv, Appendix_of_studies.pdf

**Description:** Main data file in three formats

| Variable | Description |
| :-------------------- | :------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Predator | spec...,