site.btaBulgarian Researcher among Authors of International Study on Dalmatian Pelican's Genetics

A Bulgarian researcher at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences' National Museum of Natural History, Svilen Cheshmedzhiev, is among the authors of an international research making the first comprehensive genetic assessment of the Dalmatian pelican (Pelecanus crispus) across its range. Scientists and environmentalists from ten countries participated in the study, which has been published in the Avian Research open source journal, the Museum said.

The study is based on genetic samples from 299 pelicans collected from 2019 to 2025 from 15 nesting colonies, spanning from the Balkans and Turkiye to Russia and Mongolia. In Bulgaria, the samples were collected from the biggest pelican colony in the country, located in the Kalimok-Brashlen protected area.

Understanding range-wide genetic diversity, population structure, and connectivity is fundamental for evaluating the evolutionary potential and conservation needs of a species, the study reads.

The data on Dalmatian pelicans show low genetic diversity across its range, which the researchers believe is the result of historical demographic processes related to the last glacial period and anthropogenic population declines during the 19th and 20th centuries. As the population began to recover and new colonies were being established, increased dispersal resulted in higher among-colony gene flow and the isolation by distance pattern observed today.

Because this demographic recovery is quite recent, insufficient time may have passed for increased connectivity to completely erase this pattern. If high gene flow persists, complete genetic homogeneity may be eventually achieved, as in other pelican species, the study's authors believe.

According to them, the Dalmatian pelican's colonies should not be treated as demographically interchangeable. Instead, the study's results support regional management priorities within a flyway-scale conservation framework, with particular attention to safeguarding peripheral and eastern colonies, maintaining the wetland corridors that enable dispersal and buffer newly founded or small colonies against founder effects.

The Dalmatian pelican is classified as “Near Threatened” on the IUCN Red List; it is extremely vulnerable across its entire geographical range. In Bulgaria, conservation efforts have increased the species' nesting colonies to four. Last year, a total of 149 Dalmatian pelican chicks were successfully raised there.