Seychelles warbler project

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...

We're recruiting - funded PhD "Adaptive social flexibility – a powerful mechanism to cope with a rapidly changing world" @seychelleswarbler.bsky.social @unigroningen.bsky.social @david-s-richardson.bsky.social @terryburke.bsky.social Deadline 20th April
www.rug.nl/about-ug/wor...

Metagenomic analyses of gut microbiome composition and function with age in a wild bird; little change, except increased transposase gene abundance Abstract. Studies on wild animals, mostly undertaken using 16S metabarcoding, have yielded ambiguous evidence regarding changes in the gut microbiome (GM)

Our new paper, using shotgun metagenomics on the gut microbiome, shows small but interesting longitudinal changes with age in a natural population.

🧵1/5

academic.oup.com/ismecommun/a...

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....

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...

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...

In 1988, 1990, 2004 and 2011 new populations were established by translocation on the islands of Aride, Cousine, Denis and Fregate respectively. We now have over 3000 birds on five islands making the Seychelles warbler an outstanding conservation success story.

The Seychelles warbler is a small passerine endemic to the Seychelles islands. The original remnant population of this rare bird has been studied on Cousin Island since 1981, with intensive monitoring since 1985.

We will post about research on the Seychelles warbler here. Research is conducted @unigroningen.bsky.social @sheffielduni.bsky.social @uniofeastanglia.bsky.social in collaboration with Nature Seychelles

‘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...

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 ...

Congratulations Agus Bentlage on first-author paper from your MSc thesis 🎉
- rainfall is associated with divorce in the socially monogamous Seychelles warbler besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...