Divorce rate varies with fluidity of passerine social environment

Wilson, Kerianne M.; Nguyen, Michelle M.; Burley, Nancy

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.10.018

Cited by 8 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…However, in females, the benefit is different. For example, females may benefit from polyandry by promoting male cooperation in breeding [38] and benefit from divorce by correcting errors in mate choice to enhance mate quality [1,11,12]; this may explain why female polygamy levels had no relationship with divorce in the analysis. A meta-analysis of 64 monogamous bird species showed that only females improved breeding success by divorce [4], which was consistent with the idea that females divorce for quality rather than quantity whereas the opposite is true in males.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are two main categories of hypotheses on causes of divorce to date. One explains divorce as an adaptive strategy that boosts an individual's fitness, whereas the other indicates that divorce is a neutral or an indirect effect of other ecological drivers, such as mortality and migration [1,11,12]. Upon testing these hypotheses, a few factors were shown to correlate with divorce rate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Females may be better off selecting a single high-quality mate instead of exceeding their optimal number of mates. Divorce can be an opportunity for females to seek a higher-quality mate [1,11,12], whereas for males, polygamy and divorcing in order to mate with multiple females can be alternative strategies to invest in offspring quantity rather than quality [18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Divorce rate in monogamous birds increases with male promiscuity and migration distance

et al. 2023

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Socially monogamous birds may break up their partnership by a so-called ‘divorce’ behaviour. Divorce rates vary immensely across avian taxa that have a predominantly monogamous social mating system. Although various factors associated with divorce have been tested, broad-scale drivers of divorce rate remain contentious. Moreover, the influence of sexual roles in divorce still needs further investigation because of the conflicting interests of males and females over mating and fertilization. Here, we applied phylogenetic comparative methods to analyse one of the largest datasets ever compiled that included divorce rates from published studies of 186 avian species from 25 orders and 61 families. We tested correlations between divorce rate and a group of factors: ‘promiscuity’ of both sexes (propensity to polygamy), migration distance and adult mortality. Our results showed that only male promiscuity, but not female promiscuity, had a positive relationship with divorce rate. Furthermore, migration distance was positively correlated with divorce rate, whereas adult mortality rate showed no direct relationship with divorce rate. These findings indicated that divorce might not be a simple adaptive (by sexual selection) or non-adaptive strategy (by accidental loss of a partner) in birds but it could be a mixed response to sexual conflict and stress from the ambient environment.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Divorce rate in monogamous birds increases with male promiscuity and migration distance

et al. 2023

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“…One explains divorce as an adaptive strategy that boosts individual reproductive fitness, whereas the other indicates that divorce is neutral or an indirect effect of other ecological drivers, such as mortality and migration (Table 1). 1,5,6 A range of factors associated with divorce rate have been documented in case studies, including mortality 2,11 , migration 2,12 , adult sex ratio 13 , and extra-pair paternity 14,21,22 . However, these studies only cover a limited range of avian species.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divorce rate in birds increases with male promiscuity and migration distance

Chen

Lin

Song

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Socially monogamous animals may break up their partnership after one breeding season by a so-called 'divorce' behaviour. Divorce rate immensely varies across avian taxa that have a predominantly monogamous social mating system. Although a range of factors associated with divorce have been tested, there is not a consensus regarding the large-scale variation and relationships among associated factors. Moreover, the impact of sexual roles in divorce still needs further investigation. Here, we applied phylogenetic comparative methods to analyze one of the largest datasets ever compiled that included divorce rates from published case studies of 232 avian species from 25 orders and 61 families. We tested correlations between divorce rate and a group of factors that are closely related to pair bond strength: promiscuity of both sexes, migration distance, and adult mortality. Our results showed that only male promiscuity, but not female promiscuity, had a critical relationship with divorce rate. Furthermore, migration distance was positively correlated with divorce rate and indirectly affected divorce rate via male promiscuity. These findings indicated that divorce might not be simply explained as an adaptive strategy or neutral occurrence, but could be a mixed response to sexual conflict and stress from the ambient environment.

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