Data from: Evolution of diet across the animal Tree of Life

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 1,087 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,
mammals). Finally, we estimated that the ancestor of all animals was most
likely carnivorous, as were many major phyla (e.g. arthropods, mollusks,
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.