Coming of age in your local mating market: Just a numbers game?

Research Highlight: Woodman, J. P., Cole, E. F., Firth, J. A., Perrins, C. M., & Sheldon, B. C. (2022). Disentangling the causes of age-assortative mating in bird populations with contrasting life-history strategies. Journal of Animal Ecology, . In their study of age-assortative mating, Woodman and colleagues thoroughly and concisely detail its behavioural determinants using datasets, astonishing in themselves, amassed from their decades-long studies of mute swans (Cygnus olor) and great tits (Parus major), species that are respectively longer- and shorter-lived and occupying different segments of the slow/fast life-history continuum. Here, they show that positive age-assortative mating occurs through active, age-based mate selection in mute swans which play the long game, whereas in the shorter-lived great tit this is principally a passive byproduct of demographic processes. That great tits have relatively lower interannual survivorship means that newly recruited, young birds occupy a larger proportion of the breeding population in any given year than occurs in mute swans. The adaptive significance of age-assortative mating is yet to be determined, but the current study provides an exciting possibility for the role of selection on assortative mating generally in either promoting or constraining active mate selection and sexual dimorphism within and across the tree of life.

Automated summary

Woodman et al. investigate age-assortative mating in bird populations with different life-history strategies. They find that in long-lived mute swans, positive age-assortative mating occurs through active mate selection, while in shorter-lived great tits, it is primarily a passive byproduct of demographic processes.