Divorce in Black-browed Albatrosses

Two black-browed albatrosses. Photo taken by Francesco Ventura. Retrieved from Mclure, 2021: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/24/climate-crisis-pushes-albatross-divorce-rates-higher-study 

Black-browed albatrosses are monogamous birds that typically mate for life. These birds will spend a large portion of the year flying across the ocean and return to land for reproduction with their partner (Aridi, 2021). However, albatross divorce does occur and typically happens when the partners fail to reproduce. Unfortunately, as climate change has increased, so has the divorce rates among the black-browed albatrosses (McClure, 2021).

As global temperature increases with climate change, so does the temperature of the water. The warmer water temperature means a lower fish survival, which means that the albatross will have less food. The albatross will then have to travel farther to get food, thus spending more time and energy out at sea (McClure, 2021). The lower amount of food causes a less successful reproduction rate. The stress from searching farther for food creates the production of corticosterone, a stress hormone secreted in response to environmental triggers (Ventura et al., 2021).

Stress hormones are a big factor in the selection of mates for the reproduction process. Albatrosses produce one chick during the breeding season, so having the correct partner is vital for their reproduction (Aridi, 2021). When albatross spend more time searching to food, they can return late in the breeding season and in poorer health. This is likely to result in less successful breeding and more production of stress hormones (McClure, 2021). Female albatrosses have the ability to sense their physiological stress and mistakenly blame their stress on the performance of their male partner. Due to this partner blaming, the female albatross will sometimes divorce the male and search for a new mate (McClure, 2021).

A study by Ventura et al. (2021) found divorce rates average 3.7 percent. However, divorce rates reach 7.7 percent in 2017 when the highest the surface water temperature was observed. This means that albatrosses respond to higher water temperature by creating more stress hormones, which causes stress in relationships and leads to divorce. The black-browed albatross is a near threatened species, so climate change caused warming water increases divorce and makes the species more susceptible to population loss (Aridi, 2021).

References

  1. Ventura F, Granadeiro JP, Lukacs PM, Kuepfer A, Catry P. (2021) Environmental variability directly affects the prevalence of divorce in monogamous albatrosses. R. Soc. B. 288:20211212
  2. Aridi R. (2021) Albatrosses Mate for Life, but Climate Change Has Doubled Their ‘Divorce’ Rates. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/climate-change-is-to-blame-for-albatrosses-rising-divorce-rates-180979143/ 
  3. McClure T. (2021) Climate crisis pushes albatross ‘divorce’ rates higher – study. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/nov/24/climate-crisis-pushes-albatross-divorce-rates-higher-study

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