2025-07-31 オックスフォード大学
The new study found that the behaviour of Great Tit pairs during winter can predict whether they will go on to divorce the next spring. Credit: Matt Gibson, Getty Images.
<関連情報>
- https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-07-31-great-tits-show-early-signs-splitting-oxford-researchers-uncover-social-clues-bird
- https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2024.3065
野生のシジュウカラにおける離婚のタイミングと社会動態:現象学的アプローチ Timing and social dynamics of divorce in wild great tits: a phenomenological approach
Adelaide Daisy Abraham,Ben C. Sheldon and Josh A. Firth
Proceedings of the Royal Society B Published:30 July 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2024.3065
Abstract
Social behaviour is a key part of life for many species. In monogamously breeding species, social associations between breeding partners are particularly important. Selection of a breeding partner often begins well before reproduction, and this process can affect subsequent reproductive success. Thus, the non-breeding season can shape behaviour during the breeding season. However, it is currently unknown how breeding season outcomes can impact associate choice during the non-breeding season, as studying this requires high volumes of cross-context individual social data. This study used 3 years of wild great tit social data from Wytham Woods, Oxford, UK, to examine social associations between pairs classified with respect to prior and future breeding status (divorcing, faithful, new and juvenile). We found distinct patterns of social association in ‘divorcing’ pairs from early winter, suggesting that divorce is an ongoing behavioural process. Newly forming pairs initially associated similarly to divorcing pairs, but became similar to faithful pairs over time. On a finer spatiotemporal scale, the behaviour of faithful and divorcing birds diverged over the winter. These results provide the first evidence of a behavioural signature of divorce during the non-breeding season in great tits, while suggesting that different behaviours may drive behavioural divorce at different times.
