Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Article
  • Published:

Dietary species richness provides a comparable marker for better nutrition and health across contexts

Nature Food volume 6, pages 577–586 (2025) Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Ecological diversity indices such as Hill numbers have been developed to estimate effective species numbers, yet the ability of Hill numbers to compare food biodiversity across contexts is unclear. Here we computed the between- and within-country variability of similarity-insensitive Hill numbers using dietary intake collected from prospective cohorts in nine European countries and cross-sectional studies in five low- and middle-income countries. We also assessed the relationships between more biodiverse diets, mortality rates and micronutrient adequacy. Only Hill0, better known as dietary species richness (DSR), showed strong heterogeneity between countries and individuals within countries. Higher DSR was most strongly associated with lower mortality rates in Europe as compared to Hill1, Hill2 and Hill∞, whereas relationships with micronutrient adequacy were comparable across Hill numbers in the global south. DSR can be used to assess progress towards more biodiverse diets, while also serving as a marker for the deleterious nutrition and health impacts associated with non-diverse diets.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Fig. 1: Comparison of similarity-insensitive diversity indices for a hypothetical diet.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 2: Distribution of Hill numbers in the EPIC and LMIC studies, by country.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 3: Heatscatters and correlations among Hill numbers in the EPIC and LMIC studies.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 4: Associations between higher quintiles of Hill numbers and all-cause mortality rate in the EPIC study.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 5: Associations between higher quartiles of Hill numbers and micronutrient adequacy in the LMIC study.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

EPIC data and biospecimens are available to investigators in the context of research projects that are consistent with the legal and ethical standard practices of IARC/WHO and the EPIC Centers. The use of a random sample of anonymized data from the EPIC study can be requested by contacting epic@iarc.fr. Information on the EPIC data-access policy and on how to submit an application for gaining access to EPIC data and/or biospecimens is available at http://epic.iarc.fr/access/index.php. The cross-sectional studies from the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Kenya and Viet Nam were approved by an ethics committee, while in Sri Lanka, the protocol was exempted from clearance. The anonymized individual-level data and their protocols are available at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataverse/DietarySpeciesRichness. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

Analytical code is available via Zenodo at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14730448 (ref. 51).

References

  1. Jones, S. K. et al. Agrobiodiversity Index scores show agrobiodiversity is underutilized in national food systems. Nat. Food 2, 712–723 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Benton, T., Bieg, C., Harwatt, H., Pudassaini, R. & Wellesley, L. Food System Impacts on Biodiversity Loss: Three Levers for Food System Transformation in Support of Nature (Chatham House, The Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2021).

  3. Khoury, C. K. et al. Increasing homogeneity in global food supplies and the implications for food security. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 111, 4001–4006 (2014).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  4. Verger, E. O. et al. Dietary diversity indicators and their associations with dietary adequacy and health outcomes: a systematic scoping review. Adv. Nutr. 12, 1659–1672 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  5. Stevens, G. A. et al. Micronutrient deficiencies among preschool-aged children and women of reproductive age worldwide: a pooled analysis of individual-level data from population-representative surveys. Lancet Glob. Health 10, e1590–e1599 (2022).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  6. Estrada-Carmona, N., Sánchez, A. C., Remans, R. & Jones, S. K. Complex agricultural landscapes host more biodiversity than simple ones: a global meta-analysis. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 119, e2203385119 (2022).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Herrero, M. et al. Farming and the geography of nutrient production for human use: a transdisciplinary analysis. Lancet Planet. Health 1, e33–e42 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  8. Clark, M. A. et al. Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2 °C climate change targets. Science 370, 705–708 (2020).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Remans, R., Wood, S. A., Saha, N., Anderman, T. L. & DeFries, R. S. Measuring nutritional diversity of national food supplies. Glob. Food Sec. 3, 174–182 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Thompson, H. J. et al. Dietary botanical diversity affects the reduction of oxidative biomarkers in women due to high vegetable and fruit intake. J. Nutr. 136, 2207–2212 (2006).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  11. DeClerck, F., Fanzo, J., Palm, C. & Remans, R. Ecological approaches to human nutrition. Food Nutr. Bull. 32, S41–50 (2011).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Springmann, M., Godfray, H. C. J., Rayner, M. & Scarborough, P. Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 113, 4146–4151 (2016).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  13. Jacobs, D. R. & Tapsell, L. C. Food, not nutrients, is the fundamental unit in nutrition. Nutr. Rev. 65, 439–450 (2007).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Herforth, A. W., Wiesmann, D., Martínez-Steele, E., Andrade, G. & Monteiro, C. A. Introducing a suite of low-burden diet quality indicators that reflect healthy diet patterns at population level. Curr. Dev. Nutr. 4, nzaa168 (2020).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  15. Barabási, A. L., Menichetti, G. & Loscalzo, J. The unmapped chemical complexity of our diet. Nat. Food 1, 33–37 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Eisenhauer, N. et al. Plant diversity effects on soil food webs are stronger than those of elevated CO2 and N deposition in a long-term grassland experiment. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 110, 6889–6894 (2013).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  17. de Oliveira Otto, M. C. et al. Dietary diversity: implications for obesity prevention in adult populations: a science advisory from the American Heart Association. Circulation 138, e160–e168 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  18. Medeiros de, M. F. A. et al. Assessment of biodiversity in food consumption studies: a systematic review. Front. Nutr. 9, 832288 (2022).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Berti, P. R. Relationship between production diversity and dietary diversity depends on how number of foods is counted. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 112, e5656 (2015).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  20. Daly, A. J., Baetens, J. M. & De Baets, B. Ecological diversity: measuring the nmeasurable. Mathematics 6, 119 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Hanley-Cook, G. T. et al. Food biodiversity: quantifying the unquantifiable in human diets. Crit. Rev. Food Sci. Nutr. https://doi.org/10.1080/10408398.2022.2051163 (2022).

  22. Hanley-Cook, G. T. et al. Food biodiversity and total and cause-specific mortality in 9 European countries: an analysis of a prospective cohort study. PLoS Med. 18, e1003834 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  23. Lachat, C. et al. Dietary species richness as a measure of food biodiversity and nutritional quality of diets. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 115, 127–132 (2018).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Nelson, G. et al. Income growth and climate change effects on global nutrition security to mid-century. Nat. Sustain. 1, 773–781 (2018).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Salomé, M. et al. Contrary to ultra-processed foods, the consumption of unprocessed or minimally processed foods is associated with favorable patterns of protein intake, diet quality and lower cardiometabolic risk in French adults (INCA3). Eur. J. Nutr. 60, 4055–4067 (2021).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Hill, M. O. Diversity and evenness: a unifying notation and its consequences. Ecology 54, 427–432 (1973).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Jost, L. Entropy and diversity. Oikos 113, 363–375 (2006).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  28. James-Martin, G. et al. Environmental sustainability in national food-based dietary guidelines: a global review. Lancet Planet. Health 6, e977–e986 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  29. Roswell, M., Dushoff, J. & Winfree, R. A conceptual guide to measuring species diversity. Oikos 130, 321–338 (2021).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  30. Fang, C., Fernie, A. R. & Luo, J. Exploring the diversity of plant metabolism. Trends Plant Sci. 24, 83–98 (2019).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  31. Ahmed, S. et al. Foodomics: a data-driven approach to revolutionize nutrition and sustainable diets. Front. Nutr. 9, 874312 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  32. Bernhardt, J. R. & O'Connor, M. I. Aquatic biodiversity enhances multiple nutritional benefits to humans. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. 118, e1917487118 (2021).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  33. Heilpern, S. A. et al. Declining diversity of wild-caught species puts dietary nutrient supplies at risk. Sci. Adv. 7, eabf9967 (2021).

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  34. Heiman, M. L. & Greenway, F. L. A healthy gastrointestinal microbiome is dependent on dietary diversity. Mol. Metab. 5, 317–320 (2016).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  35. Valdes, A. M., Walter, J., Segal, E. & Spector, T. D. Role of the gut microbiota in nutrition and health. BMJ 361, k2179 (2018).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  36. Xiao, C. et al. Associations of dietary diversity with the gut microbiome, fecal metabolites, and host metabolism: results from 2 prospective Chinese cohorts. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 116, 1049–1058 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  37. Fardet, A. & Rock, E. Chronic diseases are first associated with the degradation and artificialization of food matrices rather than with food composition: calorie quality matters more than calorie quantity. Eur. J. Nutr. 61, 2239–2253 (2022).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  38. Willett, W. C. et al. Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT–Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable food systems. Lancet 6736, 3–49 (2019).

    Google Scholar 

  39. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations & Bioversity International Guidelines on Assessing Biodiverse Foods in Dietary Intake Surveys (FAO, 2017).

  40. Leite, F. H. M. et al. Ultra-processed foods should be central to global food systems dialogue and action on biodiversity. BMJ Glob. Health 7, e008269 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  41. Hanley-Cook, G. T. et al. Seasonality and day-to-day variability of dietary diversity: longitudinal study of pregnant women enrolled in a randomized controlled efficacy trial in rural Burkina Faso. J. Nutr. 152, 2145–2154 (2022).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  42. Charrondière, U. R. et al. FAO/INFOODS food composition database for biodiversity. Food Chem. 140, 408–412 (2013).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. World Health Organization Guidance on Mainstreaming Biodiversity for Nutrition and Health (WHO, 2020).

  44. Hanley-Cook, G. T., Kennedy, G. & Lachat, C. Reducing Risk of Poor Diet Quality through Food Biodiversity. Agrobiodiversity Index Report (Bioversity International, 2019); https://doi.org/10.1016/b978-0-323-01199-0.50226-7

  45. Jones, S. K. et al. Achieving win-win outcomes for biodiversity and yield through diversified farming. Basic Appl. Ecol. 67, 14–31 (2023).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Green, E. J. et al. Relating characteristics of global biodiversity targets to reported progress. Conserv. Biol. 33, 1360–1369 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  47. Lachat, C. et al. Strengthening the reporting of observational studies in epidemiology—nutritional epidemiology (STROBE-nut): an extension of the STROBE statement. PLoS Med. 13, e1002036 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  48. Buckland, G. et al. Adherence to the mediterranean diet and risk of coronary heart disease in the Spanish EPIC cohort study. Am. J. Epidemiol. 170, 1518–1529 (2009).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  49. Zheng, Y. et al. Association of changes in red meat consumption with total and cause specific mortality among US women and men: two prospective cohort studies. BMJ 365, l2110 (2019).

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  50. Reynolds, A. et al. Carbohydrate quality and human health: a series of systematic reviews and meta analyses. Lancet 393, 434–445 (2019).

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  51. Deygers, J., Berden, J. & Hanley-Cook, G. T. Syntax: unifying food biodiversity indices through effective species numbers: analysis of cohorts in Europe and surveys from Africa, Asia, and South America. Zenodo https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14730448 (2025).

Download references

Acknowledgements

We are thankful for the EPIC-Ragusa data provided by the Hyblean Association for Epidemiology Research (AIRE-ONLUS). The coordination of EPIC is financially supported by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and also by the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, which has additional infrastructure support provided by the NIHR Imperial Biomedical Research Centre (BRC). The national cohorts are supported by the Danish Cancer Society (Denmark); Ligue Nationale Contre le Cancer, Institut Gustave Roussy, Mutuelle Générale de l’Education Nationale (MGEN), Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (INSERM), French National Research Agency (ANR, reference ANR-10-COHO-0006), French Ministry for Higher Education (subsidies 2102918823, 2103236497 and 2103586016) (France); German Cancer Aid, German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke (DIfE) and Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (Germany); Associazione Italiana per la Ricerca sul Cancro (AIRC), Compagnia di SanPaolo, and National Research Council (Italy); Dutch Ministry of Public Health, Welfare and Sports (VWS), Netherlands Cancer Registry (NKR), LK Research Funds, Dutch Prevention Funds, Dutch ZON (Zorg Onderzoek Nederland), World Cancer Research Fund (WCRF) and Statistics Netherlands (The Netherlands); Health Research Fund (FIS)–Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII), Regional Governments of Andalucía, Asturias, Basque Country, Murcia and Navarra and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) (Spain); Swedish Cancer Society, Swedish Research Council and County Councils of Skåne and Västerbotten (Sweden); Cancer Research UK (C864/A14136 to EPIC-Norfolk; C8221/A29017 to EPIC-Oxford) and Medical Research Council (MR/N003284/1, MC-UU_12015/1 and MC_UU_00006/1 to EPIC-Norfolk; MR/M012190/1 to EPIC-Oxford) (United Kingdom). The cross-sectional studies in Africa, Asia and South America were supported by the Flemish Interuniversity Council (Ecuador); Flemish Interuniversity Council, Leopold III fund for Nature Exploration and Conservation and Stichting Roeping (Democratic Republic of Congo); Global Environment Facility, United Nations Environmental Programme, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Bioversity International (Sri Lanka); and Humidtropics and A4NH (Kenya and Viet Nam). Funding for grant number IIG_FULL_2020_034 was obtained from Wereld Kanker Onderzoek Fonds (WKOF) as part of the World Cancer Research Fund International grant programme (principal investigator: I.H.; co-investigators: G.T.H.-C., P.V., K.A.M., M.D.-T., E.K.-G., M.T. and C.L.). D.B.I. was supported by a grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark (1057-00016B) and the Danish Diabetes Association. P.V. was supported by the NIHR Global Health Research Centres on non-communicable diseases and Environmental Change (NIHR203247). Researchers were independent from the funders. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript. Where authors are identified as personnel of IARC/World Health Organization (WHO), the authors alone are responsible for the views expressed in this article, and they do not necessarily represent the decisions, policy or views of IARC/WHO.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Giles T. Hanley-Cook, Jill Deygers.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Technology, Safety and Health, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Giles T. Hanley-Cook, Jill Deygers, Jeroen Berden, Jessica E. Raneri & Carl Lachat

  2. Department of Data Analysis and Mathematical Modelling, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium

    Aisling J. Daly

  3. Nutrition and Metabolism Branch, International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France

    Jeroen Berden, Guri Skeie & Inge Huybrechts

  4. The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Montpellier, France

    Roseline Remans

  5. Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Nairobi, Kenya

    Celine Termote & Francis Odhiambo Oduor

  6. Department of Public Health, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Daniel B. Ibsen & Christina C. Dahm

  7. Steno Diabetes Center Aarhus, Aarhus University Hospital, Aarhus, Denmark

    Daniel B. Ibsen

  8. Department of Nutrition, Sports and Exercise, University of Copenhagen, Frederiksberg, Denmark

    Daniel B. Ibsen

  9. MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine, Cambridge, UK

    Daniel B. Ibsen

  10. Sorbonne Paris Nord University, Inserm, INRAE, Cnam, Nutritional Epidemiology Research Team (EREN), Epidemiology and Statistics Research Center-Paris Cité University (CRESS), Bobigny, France

    Julia Baudry, Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot, Mélanie Deschasaux-Tanguy & Mathilde Touvier

  11. Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech University of Life Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic

    Patrick Van Damme

  12. Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Paolo Vineis

  13. Department of Molecular Epidemiology, German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbruecke, Nuthetal, Germany

    Matthias B. Schulze

  14. Institute of Nutritional Science, University of Potsdam, Nuthetal, Germany

    Matthias B. Schulze

  15. Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Hanoi, Viet Nam

    Ky The Hoang

  16. Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Research Unit, School of Public Health, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Alicia Heath

  17. Julius Center for Health Sciences and Primary Care, University Medical Center Utrecht, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Yvonne T. van der Schouw

  18. Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Tromsø, Norway

    Guri Skeie

  19. Instituto de Salud Pública y Laboral de Navarra, Pamplona, Spain

    Marcela Guevara

  20. Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain

    Marcela Guevara

  21. Navarra Institute for Health Research (IdiSNA), Pamplona, Spain

    Marcela Guevara

  22. Centre for Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Public Health, Department of Clinical and Biological Sciences, University of Turin, Turin, Italy

    Lorenzo Milani

  23. Faculty of Medicine, Universidad de Especialidades Espíritu Santo, Samborondon, Ecuador

    Daniela Penafiel

  24. Department of Food Science, Nutrition and Technology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya

    Francis Odhiambo Oduor

  25. Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, Rome, Italy

    Danny Hunter

  26. Department of Agricultural Biology, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Ruhuna, Matara, Sri Lanka

    Disna Ratnasekera

  27. Medical Research Council Unit The Gambia, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, London, UK

    Kris A. Murray

Authors
  1. Giles T. Hanley-Cook
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Jill Deygers
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Aisling J. Daly
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Jeroen Berden
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Roseline Remans
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Celine Termote
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Daniel B. Ibsen
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Julia Baudry
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Patrick Van Damme
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  11. Paolo Vineis
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Matthias B. Schulze
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Ky The Hoang
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  14. Mélanie Deschasaux-Tanguy
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  15. Alicia Heath
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  16. Christina C. Dahm
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  17. Yvonne T. van der Schouw
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  18. Guri Skeie
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  19. Marcela Guevara
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  20. Lorenzo Milani
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  21. Daniela Penafiel
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  22. Jessica E. Raneri
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  23. Francis Odhiambo Oduor
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  24. Danny Hunter
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  25. Disna Ratnasekera
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  26. Kris A. Murray
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  27. Mathilde Touvier
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  28. Inge Huybrechts
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

  29. Carl Lachat
    View author publications

    Search author on:PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

G.T.H.-C., A.J.D. and C.L. designed the study; G.T.H.-C., J.D., J. Berden and I.H. conducted the research; J.D., J. Berden and G.T.H.-C. analysed data and performed statistical analysis; G.T.H.-C. provided support for the statistical analysis; G.T.H.-C. and J.D. developed the first draft and revised the manuscript: A.J.D., J. Berden, R.R., C.T., D.B.I., J. Baudry, P.V.D., E.K.-G., I.H. and C.L. critically reviewed the manuscript; and P.V., M.B.S., K.T.H., M.D.-T., A.H., C.C.D., Y.v.d.S., G.S., M.G., L.M., D.P., J.E.R., F.O.O., D.H., D.R., K.A.M. and M.T. read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Giles T. Hanley-Cook or Carl Lachat.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Peer review

Peer review information

Nature Food thanks Sebastian Heilpern, Fernanda Helena Marrocos Leite, Michelle Cristine Medeiros Jacob and Jörg Müller for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

Additional information

Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information (download PDF )

Supplementary Notes 1 and 2, Tables 1–8 and Figs. 1–7.

Reporting Summary (download PDF )

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1 (download XLSX )

Hill numbers for hypothetical abundance vector.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hanley-Cook, G.T., Deygers, J., Daly, A.J. et al. Dietary species richness provides a comparable marker for better nutrition and health across contexts. Nat Food 6, 577–586 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01147-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Version of record:

  • Issue date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-025-01147-6

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing