Frigg Speelman

Just got back from Ny-Ålesund, the northernmost town in the world, to catch and track Arctic terns for @seatrackscience.bsky.social in collaboration with @maartenloonen.bsky.social.

I love coming to this place, and I love the terns. They probably did not like me so much though...

A pair of chirupping wedgebills of which one is vocalising

🔊🔊 What's important in a duet? In a new paper, we tested whether duet coordination in pairs has a function in their territoriality, using fine-scale and coarse measures of duet coordination in response to playback in chirruping wedgebills.
See 👉 doi.org/10.1111/eth.... @marcnaguib.bsky.social

Mate-switching is not associated with offspring fitness in a socially monogamous bird | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences In many species, individuals form socially monogamous pair-bonds lasting multiple breeding seasons, or even whole lifetimes. Studies often suggest social monogamy to be adaptive, but this is usually q...

Based on our new paper in #ProcB: doi.org/10.1098/rspb... @hannahdugdale.bsky.social @terryburke.bsky.social
@david-s-richardson.bsky.social

The chicks are alright: what songbirds can teach us about divorce and moving on Parental separation in humans can deeply affect children. But in another monogamous pair-bonding species, it has no such effect.

Broken families can have huge effects on children, even later in life. But is that the case in species other than humans?

Read my latest article in the ‪@aunz.theconversation.com‬ on mate switching effects in offspring of the ‪@seychelleswarbler.bsky.social‬ 👇
theconversation.com/the-chicks-a...

Check out the latest paper on the dramas of Seychelles warbler family life here! 👇👇

Most Relatable Paper Title 2025?

Stewart & Kelley find in chestnut-backed antbirds that acoustic features + duet coordination correlate w/body & territory size

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Interesting to compare w/quoted @friggspeelman.bsky.social study

#prattle 💬
#bioacoustics

Duetting do what now?

@friggspeelman.bsky.social etc al. (incl. @marcnaguib.bsky.social) ask in chirruping wedgebills.

Authors measure response to playbacks of duets, coordinated or un-

Results do not support role for precise coordination

ecoevorxiv.org/repository/o...

#prattle 💬
#bioacoustics

1/11
New preprint out with @hannahdugdale.bsky.social, @lummaalab.bsky.social, and @erikpostma.bsky.social: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Why do we age? And can a “natural experiment” during the Great Finnish Famine with long-term data help provide some answers?

Causes and consequences of divorce in a long‐lived socially monogamous bird In socially monogamous species, sexual selection involves both initial mate choice and mate switching. We found that divorce in Seychelles warblers occurs most among young and old males, and in pairs...

Based on our recent article in Ecology Letters: doi.org/10.1111/ele....

Why These Little Birds Divorce Despite The Risks Ditching your partner doesn’t seem to work all that well for Seychelles warblers, even if they keep the house, which may be why not many do it.

A lovely feature in iflscience on the causes of divorce 💔 in Seychelles warblers! 👇👇👇
www.iflscience.com/why-these-li...

This work is co-authored by @hannahdugdale.bsky.social, David Richardson, Jan Komdeur, and Terry Burke

Then, we studied divorcing using long-term data of @seychelleswarbler.bsky.social addressing all these shortcomings, and found that divorce is related to male age, pair-bond tenure, and reproductive success, but that there are no strong fitness consequences to divorce

We addressed 5 shortcomings: (1) divorcees and widows and (2) initiators and victims of divorce are not disentangled, (3) consequences of divorce and widowhood are not studied together (4) long-term consequences and (5) age-dependency of divorce are not addressed

Causes and consequences of divorce in a long‐lived socially monogamous bird In socially monogamous species, sexual selection involves both initial mate choice and mate switching. We found that divorce in Seychelles warblers occurs most among young and old males, and in pairs...

New paper: causes and short & long-term consequences of divorcing 💔. This papers highlights the shortcomings of studying divorce to date and provides methods to address them. Plus some new insights on divorcing in birds! See 👇 doi.org/10.1111/ele....

A screenshot of a social media post from USFWSPacific that reads: "SHE DID IT AGAIN! Wisdom, the world’s oldest known wild bird, is back with a new partner and just laid yet another egg. At an approximate age of 74, the queen of seabirds returned to Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge last week and began interacting with a male." This tweet is paired with an image of two Laysan Albatrosses at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge. Wisdom, the oldest known wild bird, is shown alongside her new partner, demonstrating her enduring legacy as a remarkable seabird.

We humbly interrupt your scroll to bring you the news that Wisdom—the world's oldest known wild bird—is breeding again, age 74.

Go on girl. 😍

Rainfall is associated with divorce in the socially monogamous Seychelles warbler To the best of our knowledge, our study is the first to show that extreme rainfall increases the prevalence of divorce in a socially monogamous population. Our findings add to the growing literature ...

🌧️💔🐦 Climate impacts on bird relationships

A new @animalecology.bsky.social study shows high & low rainfall impacts divorce rates in monogamous Seychelles warblers.

Could this signal broader ecological impacts due to #ClimateChange?

besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

🧪 #SciComm

Extreme weather driving songbirds to 'divorce' - ABC listen The early bird gets the worm, the bird in a heavy rainstorm gets divorced.

Listen to Frigg Speelman speaking on ABC radio national drive about the love life of the Seychelles warblers: www.abc.net.au/listen/progr...

‘Divorce’ in songbirds: extreme weather pushes couples past breaking point New research examines the link between extreme weather and divorce in a small monogamous tropical songbird, the Seychelles warbler. Concerningly, extreme rain and dry spells increased divorce rates.

Want to know how divorce in birds is associated with rainfall? 💔🌧️ Frigg Speelman wrote a piece (in non-scientific jargon!) theconversation.com/divorce-in-s... about our recent paper doi.org/10.1111/1365...