Familiarity breeds success: pairs that meet earlier experience increased breeding performance in a wild bird population

TY - JOUR

T1 - Familiarity breeds success: pairs that meet earlier experience increased breeding performance in a wild bird population

AU - Culina, A.

AU - Firth, Josh A.

AU - Hinde, Camilla A.

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - In socially monogamous animals, including humans, pairs can meet and spend time together before they begin reproduction. Yet, the pre-breeding period has been challenging to study in natural populations, and thus remains largely unexplored. As such, our understanding of the benefits of mate familiarity is almost entirely limited to assessments of repeated breeding with aparticular partner. Here, we used fine-scale tracking technology to gather 6years of data on pre-breeding social associations of individually marked great tits in a wild population. We show that pairs that met earlier in the winter laid their eggs earlier in all years. Clutch size, number of hatched and fledged young, and hatching and fledging success were not influenced by parents’ meeting time directly, but indirectly: earlier laying pairs had larger clutches (that also produce higher number of young), and higher hatching and fledging success. We did not detect a direct influence of the length of the initial pairing period on future mating decisions (stay with a partner or divorce). These findings suggest a selective advantage for a new pair to start associating earlier (or for individuals to mate with those they have known for longer). We call for more studies to explore the generality of fitness effects of pair familiarity prior to first breeding, and to elucidate the mechanisms underlying these effects.

AB - In socially monogamous animals, including humans, pairs can meet and spend time together before they begin reproduction. Yet, the pre-breeding period has been challenging to study in natural populations, and thus remains largely unexplored. As such, our understanding of the benefits of mate familiarity is almost entirely limited to assessments of repeated breeding with aparticular partner. Here, we used fine-scale tracking technology to gather 6years of data on pre-breeding social associations of individually marked great tits in a wild population. We show that pairs that met earlier in the winter laid their eggs earlier in all years. Clutch size, number of hatched and fledged young, and hatching and fledging success were not influenced by parents’ meeting time directly, but indirectly: earlier laying pairs had larger clutches (that also produce higher number of young), and higher hatching and fledging success. We did not detect a direct influence of the length of the initial pairing period on future mating decisions (stay with a partner or divorce). These findings suggest a selective advantage for a new pair to start associating earlier (or for individuals to mate with those they have known for longer). We call for more studies to explore the generality of fitness effects of pair familiarity prior to first breeding, and to elucidate the mechanisms underlying these effects.

KW - international

KW - Plan_S-Compliant_OA

UR - https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.5230398

U2 - 10.1098/rspb.2020.1554

DO - 10.1098/rspb.2020.1554

M3 - Article

SN - 0962-8452

VL - 287

JO - Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences

JF - Proceedings of the Royal Society B-Biological Sciences

M1 - 20201554

ER -