Wild great tits show social resilience in response to partner loss
- 1University of Oxford
Abstract
Social relationships are foundational to animal societies, but individual social connections differ hugely in importance and strength. Key relationships, such as those between breeding partners, may be prioritised and more highly invested in by individuals, but a key question is the extent to which social flexibility allows individuals to respond to the loss of these key social relationships. Here, we use a detailed longitudinal dataset of individual breeding and social behaviour in wild great tits (Parus major) to characterise flexibility in social behaviour after the loss of their breeding partner ('widowing'). We show transient increases in two measures of sociality following the widowing event. Individuals' relationships with their replacement partner were initially weaker than those between non-widowed birds, but converged by the breeding season. Hence, we show that birds are robust to the loss of key social relationships and that great tits show a flexible ability to return to social equilibrium. Strong social resilience has implications for the response of populations to change and loss.
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BibTeX
@misc{abraham2026wild,
title = {{Wild great tits show social resilience in response to partner loss}},
author = {A. D. Abraham and J. A. Firth and B. C. Sheldon},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.15.751691},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.15.751691v1},
note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Wild great tits show social resilience in response to partner loss
AU - A. D. Abraham
AU - J. A. Firth
AU - B. C. Sheldon
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/15
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.15.751691
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.15.751691v1
AB - Social relationships are foundational to animal societies, but individual social connections differ hugely in importance and strength. Key relationships, such as those between breeding partners, may be prioritised and more highly invested in by individuals, but a key question is the extent to which social flexibility allows individuals to respond to the loss of these key social relationships. Here, we use a detailed longitudinal dataset of individual breeding and social behaviour in wild great tits (Parus major) to characterise flexibility in social behaviour after the loss of their breeding partner ('widowing'). We show transient increases in two measures of sociality following the widowing event. Individuals' relationships with their replacement partner were initially weaker than those between non-widowed birds, but converged by the breeding season. Hence, we show that birds are robust to the loss of key social relationships and that great tits show a flexible ability to return to social equilibrium. Strong social resilience has implications for the response of populations to change and loss.
ER -