Timing and social dynamics of divorce in wild great tits: A phenomenological approach

Social behaviour is a key part of life for many species. In monogamously breeding species, social associations between breeding partners are particularly important. Selection of a breeding partner often begins well before reproduction, and this process can affect subsequent reproductive success. Thus, the non-breeding season can shape behaviour during the breeding season. However, it is currently unknown how breeding season outcomes can impact associate choice during the non-breeding season, as studying this requires high volumes of cross-context individual social data. This study used three years of wild great tit social data from Wytham Woods, Oxford, UK, to examine social associations between pairs classified with respect to prior and future breeding status (divorcing, faithful, new and juvenile). We found distinct patterns of social association in ’divorcing’ pairs from early winter, suggesting that divorce is an ongoing behavioural process. Newly forming pairs initially associated ..., , # Timing and social dynamics of divorce in wild great tits: A phenomenological approach

##### Abraham, A. D.; Sheldon, B. C.; Firth, J. A. Manuscript DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2024.3065

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.vq83bk453](10.5061/dryad.vq83bk453)

## Description of the data and file structure

Three years of wild great tit social data were used to analyse how winter (non-breeding) behaviour differs between breeding pairs that do and do not remain together for consecutive springs. This analysis was conducted at two different spatiotemporal scales: the number of shared flocking events at supplementary feeders, and how often pairs came to the feeder immediately before or after each other within flocking events that they shared.

All data analysis was done in R Version 4.2.2.

### Files and variables

#### File: Analysis_code.R

**Description:** The code used to analyse the data and produce results and plots included in the manuscript.

#### File: event_information_1.csv File: event_infor...,