Bentlage, A.A. orcid.org/0009-0007-1711-0985, Speelman, F.J.D., Komdeur, J. et al. (3 more authors) (2025) Rainfall is associated with divorce in the socially monogamous Seychelles warbler. Journal of Animal Ecology, 94 (1). pp. 85-98. ISSN 0021-8790
Abstract
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The Author(s). Journal of Animal Ecology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Seychelles warbler; climate window analysis; divorce; environmental conditions; habitat‐mediated hypothesis; passerine; rainfall; social monogamy |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 18 Nov 2024 14:53 |
Last Modified: | 11 Mar 2025 10:53 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/1365-2656.14216 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:219755 |