Dietary plant identification of Indian flying fox, Pteropus medius using rbcL metabarcoding of faecal samples
This study aims to identify plant taxa consumed by the Indian flying fox (Pteropus medius) using rbcL gene-based plant metabarcoding. Fecal (droppings) samples were collected non-invasively from beneath roosting sites in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India. Total DNA extracted from fecal material was amplified using plant-specific rbcL primers to recover dietary plant DNA. High-throughput sequencing data were used to characterize the diversity and composition of plant food resources consumed by the species. This dataset provides molecular evidence of bat-plant interactions and contributes to ecological and conservation studies.