Tools
ToolsBentlage, A. A., Speelman, F. J. D., Komdeur, J., Burke, T., Richardson, D. S. and Dugdale, H. L. (2025) Rainfall is associated with divorce in the socially monogamous Seychelles warbler. Journal of Animal Ecology, 94 (1). pp. 85-98. ISSN 0021-8790
Preview |
PDF (Bentlage_etal_2025_JAnimalEcology)
- Published Version
Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (766kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Divorce—terminating a pair bond whilst both members are alive—is a mating strategy observed in many socially monogamous species often linked to poor reproductive success. As environmental factors directly affect individual condition and reproductive performance, they can indirectly influence divorce. Given current climate change, understanding how environmental fluctuations affect partnership stability has important implications, including for conservation. Yet, the relationship between the environment and divorce remains largely unstudied. We examined the influence of temporal environmental variability on the prevalence of within- and between-season divorce and the possible underlying mechanisms in a socially monogamous passerine. Analysing 16 years of data from a longitudinal dataset, we investigated the relationship between rainfall and divorce in the Seychelles warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis). First, we performed climate window analyses to identify the temporal windows of rainfall that best predict reproductive success and divorce. Then, we tested the effects of these temporal windows of rainfall on reproductive success and divorce and the influence of reproductive success on divorce whilst controlling for covariates. Annual divorce rates varied from 1% to 16%. The probability of divorce was significantly associated with the quadratic effect of 7 months of total rainfall before and during the breeding season, with divorce increasing in years with low and high rainfall. This quadratic relationship was driven by a heavy rainfall event in 1997, as excluding 1997 from our analyses left a significant negative linear relationship between rainfall and divorce. Although the same temporal window of rainfall predicting divorce significantly influenced reproductive success, we found no significant correlation between reproductive success and divorce. Our findings suggest that rainfall impacts divorce. Given that this effect is likely not directly mediated by reproductive success, we discuss other possible drivers. Although the 1997 super El Niño event shows how heavy rainfall may affect socially monogamous partnerships, more data are required to estimate the robustness of this effect. By adding to the growing body of literature showing that environmental conditions influence the stability of socially monogamous partnerships, we provide novel insights that may also be important for conservation efforts in times of climate change.
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | Data availability statement: Data available from the University of Groningen dataverse https://doi.org/10.34894/GIAR3J (Bentlage et al., 2024). Funding information: Frigg Speelman was funded by a PhD scholarship from the University of Groningen and Macquarie University, the Lucie Burgers Foundation, and both the Ecology Fund Grant and Dobberke Grant from the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. The long-term data collection was supported by Natural Environment Research Council grants: NE/B504106/1, NE/F02083X/1, NE/I021748/1, NE/K005502/1, NE/P011284/1, and Dutch Research Council grants: 825.09.013, 823.01.014, 854.11.003, and 040.11.232. |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: | climate window analysis,divorce,environmental conditions,habitat-mediated hypothesis,passerine,rainfall,seychelles warbler,social monogamy,ecology, evolution, behavior and systematics,animal science and zoology,sdg 13 - climate action ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1100/1105 |
| Faculty \ School: | Faculty of Science > School of Biological Sciences |
| UEA Research Groups: | Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Organisms and the Environment Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Conservation |
| Related URLs: | |
| Depositing User: | LivePure Connector |
| Date Deposited: | 11 Feb 2025 10:30 |
| Last Modified: | 17 Feb 2025 01:19 |
| URI: | https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98445 |
| DOI: | 10.1111/1365-2656.14216 |
Downloads
Downloads per month over past year
Actions (login required)
 |
View Item |