Successful breeding predicts divorce in plovers

Abstract

When individuals breed more than once, parents are faced with the choice of whether to re-mate with their old partner or divorce and select a new mate. Evolutionary theory predicts that, following successful reproduction with a given partner, that partner should be retained for future reproduction. However, recent work in a polygamous bird, has instead indicated that successful parents divorced more often than failed breeders (Halimubieke et al. in Ecol Evol 9:10734–10745, 2019), because one parent can benefit by mating with a new partner and reproducing shortly after divorce. Here we investigate whether successful breeding predicts divorce using data from 14 well-monitored populations of plovers (Charadrius spp.). We show that successful nesting leads to divorce, whereas nest failure leads to retention of the mate for follow-up breeding. Plovers that divorced their partners and simultaneously deserted their broods produced more offspring within a season than parents that retained their mate. Our work provides a counterpoint to theoretical expectations that divorce is triggered by low reproductive success, and supports adaptive explanations of divorce as a strategy to improve individual reproductive success. In addition, we show that temperature may modulate these costs and benefits, and contribute to dynamic variation in patterns of divorce across plover breeding systems.

Dispersal distance is driven by habitat availability and reproductive success in Northern Great Plains piping plovers

“…Previous reproductive success can influence dispersal probabilities in plovers [ 55 , 56 ], as would be expected as dispersal is only beneficial if fitness increases. Individuals that have low reproductive success presumably attempt to disperse to an area of higher quality the following year to increase reproductive output [ 36 , 62 ], and individuals may divorce their partners to improve reproductive success [ 27 ]. Nests on alkali wetlands during this same period of time had higher survival rates compared to river or reservoir habitats [ 68 ].…”

Sex roles in birds: Phylogenetic analyses of the influence of climate, life histories and social environment

“…Influential behavioural ecology studies addressing the potential drivers of sex roles focused on resource distribution, parental investment and mating systems (Emlen & Oring, 1977; Orians, 1969; Reynolds, 1996; Searcy & Yasukawa, 1995; Trivers, 1972), emphasising how ecology affects the potential to monopolise mates which in turn determines the costs and benefits of deserting. Furthermore, life histories are expected to impact on sex roles because low annual mortalities and long life favour the partition of total reproductive investment into several events and are expected to lead to mate retention, low divorce rates and biparental care of the offspring (Andersson, 1994; Choudhury, 1996; Halimubieke et al, 2020). More recent studies have emphasised the significance of the social environment and show that mating opportunities and adult sex ratios predict mating systems and parental investment (Fromhage & Jennions, 2016; Kokko & Jennions, 2008; Liker et al, 2013; Székely et al, 2014) suggesting that frequency‐dependent aspects of sexual selection could impact on sex role behaviour (Fritzsche et al, 2016; Liker et al, 2021; Schacht et al, 2017).…”

Influence of reproductive output on divorce rates in polar seabirds

“…Indeed, searching for a new mate may delay the initiation of breeding activities, which could be very costly in polar environments where breeding phenology is an important determinant of breeding success (Burr et al., 2016 ; Ens et al., 1996 ; Ritz et al., 2005 ). Furthermore, the familiarity between faithful mates may also be an important factor to achieve a successful breeding and raise offspring in these harsh and stochastic environments (Halimubieke et al., 2020 ).…”