{"id":12963,"date":"2012-02-17T11:46:29","date_gmt":"2012-02-17T16:46:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/?p=12963"},"modified":"2012-02-17T11:46:29","modified_gmt":"2012-02-17T16:46:29","slug":"global-warming-swings-more-mate-swapping-among-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/2012\/02\/global-warming-swings-more-mate-swapping-among-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Global Warming Swings: More mate-swapping among birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The results could mean more marital strife for birds coping with climate change.&#8221;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The media release is below.<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n<p><strong>Birds in uncertain climates are more likely to stray from their mates<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Dicey weather could mean more marital strife for birds coping with climate change, study says<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Durham, NC \u2014 Married people may pledge to stay faithful through good times and bad, but birds sing a different tune \u2014 when weather is severe or uncertain, birds are more likely to stray from their mates, says a new study by researchers working at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center and Columbia University.<\/p>\n<p>The results could mean more marital strife for birds coping with climate change, the researchers say.<\/p>\n<p>Divorce and infidelity are a normal part of life for most birds, which typically nest with one partner for a few months or years, but may have chicks out of &#8216;wedlock&#8217; or move on to new mates between breeding seasons.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Most apparently monogamous birds end up having multiple partners,&#8221; said lead author Carlos Botero, who conducted the study while at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Initiative in Biocomplexity at North Carolina State University.<\/p>\n<p>Botero and his colleague Dustin Rubenstein of Columbia University wanted to find out if bird divorce and infidelity were more or less likely in dicey climates.<\/p>\n<p>To find out, they studied records of the mating habits of hundreds of bird species, focusing on species where males and females work together to raise their chicks \u2014 a large data set that included swallows, chickadees, blue birds, falcons, warblers, sparrows, ducks, geese and gulls.<\/p>\n<p>For each species in their data set, they measured the rate of infidelity \u2014 defined as the fraction of nests containing chicks resulting from an &#8216;affair&#8217; \u2014 as well as the rate of divorce, or the fraction of birds that changed partners between breeding seasons.<\/p>\n<p>When they combined this data with temperature and precipitation records from weather stations near each species&#8217; nesting sites, they found something interesting \u2014 birds that breed in changeable climates were more likely to cheat.<\/p>\n<p>Infidelity was more common in species that breed in areas with more dramatic seasonal swings between warm and cold. When seasons are severe, promiscuity may pay off as a way of increasing the genetic diversity of the chicks, Botero said. &#8220;Mating with multiple partners improves the chances that at least one chick will have the genes to cope with the variable conditions to come,&#8221; he explained.<\/p>\n<p>The effect was greater for divorce. Birds in unpredictable climates were more likely to cast off their current mate and seek a new partner for the next breeding season, even at the expense of losing valuable breeding time before they paired up again.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The quality of a potential mate depends on the context,&#8221; Botero explained. In the Galapagos Islands, for example, finches with bigger beaks are better at finding food during dry periods, when larger, drier, harder-to-crush seeds are more important, whereas finches with smaller beaks do better during wet periods.<\/p>\n<p>The perfect partner during one set of conditions may be a so-so mate at another. But when the length, timing or intensity of annual weather cycles is less certain, it may be harder for a bird to predict, based on conditions during the courting phase, what conditions are likely to be like during the chick-rearing phase. &#8220;The more unpredictable the environment is, the more likely birds are to make mistakes [in picking a mate], and the more likely they are to divorce,&#8221; Botero said.<\/p>\n<p>What does this mean for birds coping with climate change?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;As a result of climate change weather patterns have become more unpredictable, and the frequency of extreme weather events has increased,&#8221; Botero said.<\/p>\n<p>Whether the findings apply to humans is still unknown, but in birds &#8220;we would expect marital strife will become much more common,&#8221; he added.<\/p>\n<p>###<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;The results could mean more marital strife for birds coping with climate change.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-climate-energy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6SqJi-3n5","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/junkscience.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}