For the first time, the #Aldabra team conducted a lagoon-wide survey of the atoll with a WingtraOne Gen II drone, supported by SeyCCAT #BGF5 The survey was completed to cover the vast Aldabra lagoon, with initial analysis already revealing a minimum of 16 dugongs!

Tomorrow, I’m bringing the #CEBill back to Parliament. To truly address the global climate-nature crisis, we must align UK law with what’s needed to reverse nature loss by 2030—and keep 1.5°C alive. The CE Bill will do exactly that! 🌍🌱 Zero Hour 🌍

Wrapping up the Aging Biology session is Euan Young Euan Angus Young giving a fascinating talk about measuring the costs of reproduction in preindustrial women 🤩 #EMPSEB28

It was great to join virtual #Evol2023 - our SeychellesWarbler preprint I presented is ecoevorxiv.org/repository/vie… @chestertonell @AlexSparks_ Terry Burke David S Richardson

Very excited to talk about the SeychellesWarbler at my first Ozzie conference 🤓

🚨New paper out in Molecular Ecology!🚨We use longitudinal data from the SeychellesWarbler project to understand the relationship between gut microbiome dynamics and host senescence. doi.org/10.1111/mec.17…

Well done Frigg Speelman - 3rd pre-print of PhD is out showing a surprising lack of parental mate-switching effects on SeychellesWarbler offspring fitness components doi.org/10.32942/X2BG9Z David S Richardson Terry Burke Nature Seychelles

Exciting PhD opportunity - Passerine viromics and genomics David S Richardson, UEA Research UEA CEEC working on the wonderful Seychelles warbler SeychellesWarbler, and with @EvelienAdri and Dugdale Research Group biodtp.norwichresearchpark.ac.uk/projects/passe… Applications deadline Nov 25

Our new (my first/first-author 🎉) paper is out Journal of Animal Ecology! We found that rainfall is associated with divorce in the socially monogamous SeychellesWarbler besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/13… Big thanks to the team Frigg Speelman Dugdale Research Group Terry Burke David S Richardson Nature Seychelles 1/5

Using climate window analyses we found that specific months of rainfall before and during the breeding season best predicted divorce and other factors possibly linked to divorce, such as markers of reproductive success and territory quality. 2/5

We found that these 7 months of rainfall best predicting divorce had a significant quadratic effect on divorce, with divorce increasing in years with extremely low and heavy rainfall. The quadratic relationship was driven by a very wet super El Niño year in 1997. 3/5

Although the same months of rainfall best-predicting divorce were also significantly correlated with our markers of reproductive success, we found no significant correlation between reproductive success and divorce, leading us to discuss other possible drivers. 4/5

All in all, we add to the growing body of literature showing that environmental conditions influence the stability of socially monogamous partnerships and provide novel insights that may also be important for conservation efforts in times of climate change. 5/5

Want to know how divorce in birds is associated with rainfall? 💔🌧️ I wrote a piece (in non-scientific jargon!) about our recent paper in Journal of Animal Ecology 👇👇. If you want to read the science-y version, see: doi.org/10.1111/1365-2… Agus Ananta Bentlage Dugdale Research Group SeychellesWarbler

Listen to Frigg Speelman speaking on ABC radio national drive about extreme weather and divorce in the SeychellesWarbler : abc.net.au/listen/program…

New paper: causes and short & long-term consequences of divorcing 💔. This papers highlights the shortcomings of studying divorce to date and provides methods to address them. Plus some new insights on divorcing in birds! See 👇 doi.org/10.1111/ele.14…

We addressed 5 shortcomings: (1) divorcees and widows and (2) initiators and victims of divorce are not disentangled, (3) consequences of divorce and widowhood are not studied together (4) long-term consequences and (5) age-dependency of divorce are not addressed

Then, we studied divorcing using long-term data of SeychellesWarbler addressing all these shortcomings, and found that divorce is related to male age, pair-bond tenure, and reproductive success, but that there are no strong fitness consequences to divorce

A lovely feature in iflscience on the causes of divorce 💔 in the SeychellesWarbler ! 👇👇👇 iflscience.com/why-these-litt…

I am thrilled and deeply grateful to share that my latest work has been accepted for publication. 🥳 doi.org/10.1093/ismeco…