Skip to content

Kentish Plover Diet Differed Sharply Across Sand Beach, Mudflat and Mangrove Habitats

Kentish Plover running across open sandy habitat at Bakkhali, India
Research · Ecology

Kentish plover (Anarhynchus alexandrinus) diets differed strongly among three neighbouring coastal habitats at Kadalundi-Vallikkunnu Community Reserve on the west coast of India. From 2022 to 2024, researchers counted the birds, analysed undigested prey remains in droppings and sampled bottom-dwelling invertebrates in mudflats, mangroves and an adjacent sand beach.

Each habitat produced a different diet

Sand crabs dominated the diet on the sand beach. In mudflats and mangroves, polychaete worms and small crabs formed the main prey groups. These habitat differences remained broadly stable through the three-year study, even though the local prey communities themselves differed strongly among habitats.

Prey abundance alone did not predict what the birds ate

The researchers compared the relative abundance of major prey groups in the sediment with their representation in the droppings. This electivity analysis asks whether a prey group is eaten more, less or roughly as often as its local abundance would predict. Polychaetes were positively selected in mudflats and mangroves, while sand crabs showed the strongest positive selection on the beach.

Local prey abundance therefore did not explain diet composition by itself. The authors interpret the result as habitat-specific selective foraging: prey accessibility — whether birds can reach, detect and handle a prey type in a particular habitat — may matter more for realised diet than the simple number of prey animals present in sediment samples.

Kentish plovers were also more abundant on the sand beach than in the other two habitats, and observed numbers declined consistently over the study period. This was a separate abundance pattern; the study does not show that the dietary differences caused the decline.

Sources and image credit

  1. Jishnu, K., Rubeena, K. A., Athira, T. R., Nasser, M., Reshi, O. R., & Aarif, K. M. (2026). Diet composition of Kentish Plover (Charadrius alexandrinus): insights from undigested prey in droppings across three selected microhabitats along the west coast of India. Marine Biology, 173(6), 104. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-026-04859-wPrimary peer-reviewed article published online 26 May 2026. From 2022–2024 the study compared Kentish Plover abundance, droppings and macrobenthic prey at mudflats, mangroves and sand beach in Kadalundi-Vallikkunnu Community Reserve. Diet differed strongly by habitat and did not simply follow prey abundance.

Image: Tisha Mukherjee / Wikimedia Commons — wild Kentish Plover running across open sandy habitat at Bakkhali, West Bengal, India, 20 March 2026; representative foraging-habitat image · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

About this content: This story was produced with AI assistance within an editorial workflow developed by Wildlife Vagabond. Editorial responsibility remains with Wildlife Vagabond.How AI is used

Ecology

SPECIES IN THIS STORY

Species in this story

Kentish Plover Anarhynchus alexandrinus Explore species

Independent research and conservation news archive

Did you find this information useful?

Wildlife Vagabond is independently built and maintained. Voluntary support helps cover source verification, hosting and continued work on research and conservation news.

Support Wildlife Vagabond

The news archive will remain freely available.