Liliana V. Vassileva‡, Lyudmila Lozanova‡, Martin Marinov‡, Jérôme Morinière§, Boyko Neov‡, Boris Nikolov‡, Nikolay Simov|, Stefania Klayn‡Corresponding author: Liliana Vassileva ( lilianavassileva@gmail.com ) © Liliana Vassileva, Lyudmila Lozanova, Martin Marinov, Jérôme Morinière, Boyko Neov, Boris Nikolov, Nikolay Simov, Stefania Klayn. This is an open access preprint distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Citation:
Vassileva LV, Lozanova L, Marinov M, Morinière J, Neov B, Nikolov B, Simov N, Klayn S (2025) Dataset of Grey plover (Pluvialis squatarola) diet composition on the SW Black Sea coast using DNA metabarcoding. ARPHA Preprints. https://doi.org/10.3897/arphapreprints.e150884 |  |
Food quality and availability at migration stopover sites is crucial for wader migration success, particularly nowadays with their populations in decline due to widespread anthropogenic habitat degradation and loss.
We studied the diet composition and preferences of the Grey plover (Pluvialis squatarola) at a stopover site on the Black Sea-Meditteranean Flyway - Pomorie Lake, SW Black Sea coast, Bulgaria, - through DNA metabarcoding of faeces. The study aimed to determine the bird's feeding strategy, coastal habitat use, and possible seasonal variations as a result of local prey availability.
The dataset includes new data on Grey plover (Pluvialis squatarola) prey items on the south-western Black Sea coast, Bulgaria. The diet composition data provides valuable insights on coastal biodiversity in the area as "sampled" by this generalist invertivore, and contributes to the knowledge of Grey plover prey choice and habitat use in a little-studied microtidal marine region.