Social Familiarity and Spatially Variable Environments Independently Determine Reproductive Fitness in a Wild Bird

Gokcekus, Samin; Firth, Josh A.; Regan, Charlotte E.; Cole, Ella F.; Sheldon, Ben C.; Albery, Gregory F.

doi:10.1086/724382

Cited by 8 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…This finding on breeding neighbours raises the possibility that the previously observed positive effect of neighbour familiarity (Gokcekus et al 2023;Grabowska-Zhang et al 2012c) is actually due to general sociality and/or early establishing of territories and not the result of cooperation that arises due to specific bonds with particular individuals. However, it is also possible that breeding neighbour familiarity is most important for an aspect of fitness that we cannot measure: whether individuals are able to establish a territory at all.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

“…We analyzed three years (2011-2014) of data from 754 individuals. We ran separate models for males and females for each of the five fitness variables derived from the breeding data (binary success, clutch size, lay date, mean chick weight, and number of fledglings), as each individual has different social characteristics (following Gokcekus et al 2023). We fitted Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) using the Integrated Nested Laplace Approximation (INLA) R package and fitted the SPDE random effect (for breeding season locations).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Individuals are monitored during winter and spring over multiple years and in multiple social contexts, with associated data collected on reproductive success. As detailed below, four broad types of associations exist within this population that are known to be biologically meaningful: pair mates (Culina et al 2015b(Culina et al , a, 2020Firth et al 2018a;, breeding neighbours (Gokcekus et al 2023;Grabowska-Zhang et al 2012a, b), winter flockmates (Firth et al 2015(Firth et al , 2017(Firth et al , 2018b, and winter spatial associates Firth et al 2018b;.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Stronger associations within the pair bond, often assessed in terms of familiarity over time, seem to come with fitness benefits in many species (Ausband 2019;Van De Pol et al 2006;Sánchez-Macouzet et al 2014). In this population, pairs who meet earlier in the winter have higher reproductive success (Culina et al 2020), pairs that stay together longer are more likely to survive (Culina et al 2015a), and individuals that are unsuccessful are more likely to divorce (Culina et al 2015b;Gokcekus et al 2023).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Different types of social links contrastingly shape reproductive wellbeing in a multi-level society of wild songbirds

Gokcekus,

Firth,

Cole

et al. 2024

Preprint

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The social environment has diverse consequences for individuals’ welfare, health, reproductive success, and survival. This environment consists of different kinds of dyadic bonds that exist at different levels; in many social species, smaller social units come together in larger groups, creating multilevel societies. In great tits (Parus major), individuals have four major types of dyadic bonds: pair mates, breeding neighbours, flockmates, and spatial associates, all of which have been previously linked to fitness outcomes. Here, we show that these different types of dyadic bonds are differentially linked with subsequent reproductive success metrics in this wild population and that considering spatial effects provides further insights into these relationships. We provide evidence that more social individuals had a higher number of fledglings, and individuals with more spatial associates had smaller clutch sizes. We also show individuals with stronger bonds with their pair mate had earlier lay dates. Our study highlights the importance of considering different types of dyadic relationships when investigating the relationship between wellbeing and sociality, and the need for future work aimed at experimentally testing these relationships, particularly in spatially structured populations.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 58%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Different types of social links contrastingly shape reproductive wellbeing in a multi-level society of wild songbirds

Gokcekus,

Firth,

Cole

et al. 2024

Preprint

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“…The polygon includes all space within the habitat that is closer to the focal box than any other (with a boundary also imposed by the woodland edge). This metric of territory has been shown to be biologically meaningful in terms of territory size and territorial neighbours in tit species and is strongly related to other methods of calculating territories [47,[53][54][55][56]. However, a limitation is that unrealistically large polygons are formed in areas where nestboxes are placed at great distances from each other.…”

Section: Determining Breeding Territoriesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age-specificity in territory quality and spatial structure in a wild bird population

Woodman,

Cole,

Firth

et al. 2024

Preprint

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Age influences behaviour, survival, and reproduction; hence variation in population age structure can affect population-level dynamics. The extent of spatial age structure may be important in driving spatially-variable demography, particularly when space-use is linked to reproduction, yet it is not well understood. Here, we use long-term data from a wild passerine bird population to quantify covariance between territory quality and age and assess spatial age structure. We find associations between age and aspects of territory quality, but little evidence for spatial age structure compared to territory quality and reproductive spatial structure. We also report little between-year repeatability of spatial age structure compared to structure in reproductive output. We suggest that high breeding site fidelity and frequent territory turnover by younger breeders, driven by high mortality and immigration rates, limits the association between age and territory quality and weakens overall spatial age structure. Greater spatial structure and repeatability in reproductive output compared to age suggests that in this system habitat quality may be more important in driving spatially-variable demography than age. We suggest that the framework developed here can be used in many other populations to assess the causes and consequences of spatial age structure.

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Proximity and preening in captive Humboldt penguins

Kobayashi,

Ueno

2024

Behavioural Processes

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Social Familiarity and Spatially Variable Environments Independently Determine Reproductive Fitness in a Wild Bird

Cited by 8 publications

References 79 publications

Different types of social links contrastingly shape reproductive wellbeing in a multi-level society of wild songbirds

Different types of social links contrastingly shape reproductive wellbeing in a multi-level society of wild songbirds

Age-specificity in territory quality and spatial structure in a wild bird population

Proximity and preening in captive Humboldt penguins

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