Wild zebra finches that nest synchronously have long‐term stable social ties

Brandl, Hanja B.; Griffith, Simon C.; Farine, Dan; Schuett, Wiebke

doi:10.1111/1365-2656.13082

Cited by 35 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 61 publications

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“…The zebra finches in our study population bred in a large colony extending over 1.5 kilometres, consisting of several smaller clusters of nest boxes in higher densities (distance between neighbouring boxes within clusters = 10.4 ± 4.8 SD meters). Zebra finches share strong social relationships with their spatially close neighbours that involve different social interactions, such as visiting each other's nests [27], actively synchronising their reproduction [28], and foraging together [29]. These strong social bonds between individuals can be maintained over multiple seasons and persist even outside of reproductive periods [29].…”

Section: No Effect Of Age and Sexmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Zebra finches share strong social relationships with their spatially close neighbours that involve different social interactions, such as visiting each other's nests [27], actively synchronising their reproduction [28], and foraging together [29]. These strong social bonds between individuals can be maintained over multiple seasons and persist even outside of reproductive periods [29]. The prolonged social interactions give some opportunity for direct exchange of bacteria, but shared foraging spaces and resting places also mean that individuals are in contact with a similar environmental bacterial pool.…”

Section: No Effect Of Age and Sexmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Family matters: Skin microbiome reflects the social group and spatial proximity in wild zebra finches

Engel

Pankoke

Jünemann

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Background: An animal’s skin is densely populated with a physiological community of bacteria that represents the first barrier to its environment. Investigations on the physiological skin flora have emerged in recent years, but especially in avian taxa our understanding of the ecology and function of these bacteria remains incomplete. The involvement of skin bacteria in intra-specific communication has received attention, and has highlighted the need to understand what information is potentially being encoded in bacterial communities. Using next generation sequencing techniques, we characterized the skin microbiome of wild zebra finches, aiming to understand the impact of sex, age, group composition, spatial distribution among families, and environment on skin bacteria communities. For this purpose, we sampled skin swabs from both sexes and two age classes (adults and nestlings) of 12 different zebra finch families and analysed the bacterial communities. Results: Using 16S rRNA sequencing we found that animals of social groups (families) harbour highly similar bacterial communities on their skin with respect to community composition. Closely related individuals shared significantly more bacterial taxa than non-related animals. While we did not find any effect of sex and age on bacterial diversity, we found that spatial proximity of nest sites, and therefore individuals, correlated with the skin microbiome. Conclusions: Birds harbour very diverse and complex bacterial assemblages on their skin. These bacterial communities are distinguishable and characteristic for intraspecific social groups. Our findings are indicative for a family-specific skin microbiome in wild zebra finches. Genetics and the (social) environment are influential factors shaping the complex bacterial communities. Bacterial communities associated with the skin have a potential to emit volatiles and therefore these communities may play a role in intraspecific social communication, e.g. via signalling social group membership.

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Section: No Effect Of Age and Sexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: No Effect Of Age and Sexmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family matters: Skin microbiome reflects the social group and spatial proximity in wild zebra finches

Engel

Pankoke

Jünemann

et al. 2020

Preprint

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The zebra nches in our study population bred in a large colony extending over 1.5 kilometres, consisting of several smaller clusters of nest boxes in higher densities (distance between neighbouring boxes within clusters = 10.4 ± 4.8 SD meters). Zebra nches share strong social relationships with their spatially close neighbours that involve different social interactions, such as visiting each other's nests [27], actively synchronising their reproduction [28], and foraging together [29] .…”

Section: Family-speci C Skin Microbiome and Spatial Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These strong social bonds between individuals can be maintained over multiple seasons and persist even outside of reproductive periods [29]. The prolonged social interactions give some opportunity for direct exchange of bacteria, but shared foraging spaces and resting places also mean that individuals are in contact with a similar environmental bacterial pool.…”

Section: Family-speci C Skin Microbiome and Spatial Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family matters: Skin microbiome reflects the social group and spatial proximity in wild zebra finches

Engel

Pankoke

Jünemann

et al. 2020

Preprint

Self Cite

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Background: So far, large numbers of studies investigating the microbiome have focused on gut microbiota and less have addressed the microbiome of the skin. Especially in avian taxa our understanding of the ecology and function of these bacteria remains incomplete. The involvement of skin bacteria in intra-specific communication has recently received attention, and has highlighted the need to understand what information is potentially being encoded in bacterial communities. Using next generation sequencing techniques, we characterised the skin microbiome of wild zebra finches, aiming to understand the impact of sex, age and group composition on skin bacteria communities. For this purpose, we sampled skin swabs from both sexes and two age classes (adults and nestlings) of 12 different zebra finch families and analysed the bacterial communities.Results: Using 16S rRNA sequencing we found no effect of age, sex and family on bacterial diversity (alpha diversity). However, when comparing the composition (beta diversity), we found that animals of social groups (families) harbour highly similar bacterial communities on their skin with respect to community composition. Within families, closely related individuals shared significantly more bacterial taxa than non-related animals. In addition, we found that age (adults vs. nestlings) affected bacterial composition. Finally, we found that spatial proximity of nest sites, and therefore individuals, correlated with the skin microbiome similarity. Conclusions: Birds harbour very diverse and complex bacterial assemblages on their skin. These bacterial communities are distinguishable and characteristic for intraspecific social groups. Our findings are indicative for a family-specific skin microbiome in wild zebra finches. Genetics and the (social) environment seem to be the influential factors shaping the complex bacterial communities. Bacterial communities associated with the skin have a potential to emit volatiles and therefore these communities may play a role in intraspecific social communication, e.g. via signalling social group membership.

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“…Thus the challenge lies in disentangling whether an annual association between individuals is only due to philopatry (natal or breeding), to random gregariousness, or also due to the existence of social ties within groups of individuals over time 31 . The existence of social ties between neighbouring pairs in breeding colonies are rarely considered in behavioural and ecological studies 32 and, if true, such associations may suggest the evolution of social cohesion for exploiting the evolutionary advantages of social living (including social information sharing) for individual fitness prospects. Many colonial seabirds evolved in very variable environments, with very patchy and unpredictable resources (both food and safe breeding habitats), which means that they are forced to make decisions constantly, and social coping and social information sharing may be more relevant than previously thought 4 , 24 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Decrease in social cohesion in a colonial seabird under a perturbation regime

Genovart

Giménez

Bertolero³

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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Social interactions, through influence on behavioural processes, can play an important role in populations’ resilience (i.e. ability to cope with perturbations). However little is known about the effects of perturbations on the strength of social cohesion in wild populations. Long-term associations between individuals may reflect the existence of social cohesion for seizing the evolutionary advantages of social living. We explore the existence of social cohesion and its dynamics under perturbations by analysing long-term social associations, in a colonial seabird, the Audouin’s gull Larus audouinii, living in a site experiencing a shift to a perturbed regime. Our goals were namely (1) to uncover the occurrence of long-term social ties (i.e. associations) between individuals and (2) to examine whether the perturbation regime affected this form of social cohesion. We analysed a dataset of more than 3500 individuals from 25 years of monitoring by means of contingency tables and within the Social Network Analysis framework. We showed that associations between individuals are not only due to philopatry or random gregariousness but that there are social ties between individuals over the years. Furthermore, social cohesion decreased under the perturbation regime. We sustain that perturbations may lead not only to changes in individuals’ behaviour and fitness but also to a change in populations’ social cohesion. The consequences of decreasing social cohesion are still not well understood, but they can be critical for the population dynamics of social species.

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Wild zebra finches that nest synchronously have long‐term stable social ties

Abstract: This is the author manuscript accepted for publication and has undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as

Cited by 35 publications

References 61 publications

Family matters: Skin microbiome reflects the social group and spatial proximity in wild zebra finches

Family matters: Skin microbiome reflects the social group and spatial proximity in wild zebra finches

Family matters: Skin microbiome reflects the social group and spatial proximity in wild zebra finches

Decrease in social cohesion in a colonial seabird under a perturbation regime

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