Wiley Elizabeth M, Ridley Amanda R
Centre for Evolutionary Biology School of Biological Sciences University of Western Australia Crawley WA Australia.
Department of Zoology Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology University of Cape Town Rondebosch South Africa.
Ecol Evol. 2018 Jun 11;8(14):7178-7185. doi: 10.1002/ece3.4243. eCollection 2018 Jul.
The benefits of stable pair bonds (that persist between breeding attempts) have been well described, but are relatively less well known in cooperatively breeding species. If pair bonds are beneficial, then it is possible that the bond between the behaviorally and socially dominant pair may influence factors such as reproductive success and group stability in cooperative species. Here, we used long-term data to investigate the relationships between pair bond tenure, reproductive success, and group stability in the cooperatively breeding pied babbler (). Pair bond tenure positively influenced both the number of offspring recruited per pair and total reproductive success (over entire pair bond duration), indicating that pair bond tenure has an important influence on reproductive success. The likelihood of immigration into the group was lower for groups containing a bonded pair with long tenure, indicating that the duration of pair bonds may impact group stability. These findings suggest that pair tenure, a hitherto relatively unexplored factor in cooperative species, may have an important influence on group dynamics.
稳定配偶关系（在繁殖尝试之间持续存在）的益处已得到充分描述，但在合作繁殖物种中相对不太为人所知。如果配偶关系有益，那么行为和社会上占主导地位的配偶之间的关系可能会影响合作物种的繁殖成功率和群体稳定性等因素。在这里，我们利用长期数据研究了合作繁殖的斑胸草雀的配偶关系持续时间、繁殖成功率和群体稳定性之间的关系。配偶关系持续时间对每对招募的后代数量和总繁殖成功率（在整个配偶关系持续期间）都有积极影响，这表明配偶关系持续时间对繁殖成功率有重要影响。对于包含长期配偶关系的群体，个体迁入该群体的可能性较低，这表明配偶关系的持续时间可能会影响群体稳定性。这些发现表明，配偶关系持续时间是合作物种中一个迄今相对未被探索的因素，可能对群体动态有重要影响。
