Inbreeding and divorce in blue and great tits

Abstract

In blue tits,Parus caeruleus, and other wild birds, matings between close relatives or between genetically similar individuals are associated with fitness costs, often in terms of lower hatching success of the eggs. If individuals cannot assess their genetic similarity to potential mates, those fitness costs may be hard to avoid; however, they may use the proportion of unhatched eggs in their clutch as a cue for their mate choice in the next season. We tested this hypothesis using data from a long-term population study on blue and great tits,Parus major. Divorce in response to inbreeding depression can be considered a special case of the ‘incompatibility hypothesis’. As predicted from this hypothesis, both male and female blue tits benefited from divorce when part of their clutch failed to hatch. There was no evidence however, that divorce in blue or great tits was related to the presence of unhatched eggs in the nest.