
Bart KempenaersMax Planck Institute for Biological Intellligence
Bart Kempenaers
PhD
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Publications (528)
Snow cover and snow melt patterns are important features of the Arctic environment, with wide-ranging repercussions for ecology. Datasets based on satellite imaging—often freely available—provide a powerful means for estimating snow cover. However, researchers should be aware of the possible error and bias in such datasets. Here, we quantify measur...
The traditional narrative of the life cycle of migratory birds is that individuals perform long-distance movements between a breeding and a wintering site, but are largely resident at those sites. Although this pattern may apply to socially monogamous species with biparental care, in polygamous systems, the sex that only provides gametes may benefi...
Intraspecific variation provides the substrate for the evolution of organisms. Ruffs show exceptional phenotypic variation in physiology, appearance and behaviour linked to variation between sexes and male alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs). The male ARTs are associated with the evolution of separate morphs, which are encoded by an autosomal s...
The ruff sandpiper (Calidris pugnax) is a lekking shorebird with three male morphs that differ remarkably in behavior, ornaments, size, and endocrinology. The morphs are determined by an autosomal inversion. Aggressive Independents evolved first, female-mimicking Faeders ~4 mil year ago when a short segment of a chromosome reversed in orientation,...
Ground‐nesting shorebirds must balance the need for acoustic communication at the nest with the constant threat posed by predators. Although it may seem likely that their calls are adapted to minimize detection by predators, little is known about how these birds communicate at the nest or whether they employ cryptic strategies to avoid predation. U...
In many socially monogamous bird species with biparental care, occasional social polygyny has been detected. We provide information about a case of facultative polygyny in the European Nightjar (Caprimulgus europaeus). The male nightjar (I96) formed a pair with two females (I95: the presumed primary female with whom he already bred since 2018; M042...
In many animal species, including most birds, parental care is performed by both parents, which has important implications for mate choice (good parent hypothesis) and parental investment strategies. Partitioning the variance in measures of parental care into heritable and non-heritable components is important to understand the evolvability of pare...
Maternal investment directly shapes early developmental conditions and therefore has long-term fitness consequences for the offspring. In oviparous species prenatal maternal investment is fixed at the time of laying. To ensure the best survival chances for most of their offspring, females must equip their eggs with the resources required to perform...
Intraspecific variation provides the substrate for the evolution of organisms. Ruffs show exceptional phenotypic variation in physiology, appearance and behaviour linked to variation between sexes and male alternative reproductive tactics (ARTs). The male ARTs are associated with the evolution of separate morphs, which are encoded by an autosomal s...
Identifying the migration routes and stopover sites used by declining species is critical for developing targeted conservation actions. Long-distance migratory shorebirds are among the groups of birds declining most rapidly, yet we frequently lack detailed knowledge about the routes and stopover sites they use during their hemisphere-spanning migra...
Identifying the migration routes and stopover sites used by declining species is critical for developing targeted conservation actions. Long-distance migratory shorebirds are among the groups of birds declining most rapidly, yet we frequently lack detailed knowledge about the routes and stopover sites they use during their hemisphere-spanning migra...
Maternal investment directly shapes early developmental conditions and therefore has longterm fitness consequences for the offspring. In oviparous species prenatal maternal investment is fixed at the time of laying. To ensure the best survival chances for most of their offspring, females must equip their eggs with the resources required to perform...
A major aim of evolutionary biology is to understand why patterns of genomic diversity vary within taxa and space. Large‐scale genomic studies of widespread species are useful for studying how environment and demography shape patterns of genomic divergence. Here, we describe one of the most geographically comprehensive surveys of genomic variation...
In animals, reproductive performance typically improves over time early in life. Several ultimate and proximate mechanisms may contribute to such an age-related improvement and these mechanisms can act in a relative or in an absolute sense. Low performance of young individuals may be the consequence of a comparison or competition with older individ...
In most bird species, males are more ornamented and compete for females, who contribute more to offspring care. In a minority of species, this pattern is reversed, with more colorful females competing for mates and males taking care of parental duties. In such sex-role reversed species, the links between colorful ornamentation, individual quality a...
When host nests are scarce, avian brood parasites would benefit from behaviours that increase the availability of suitable nests. Several studies reported ejection of host nestlings from nests by brood parasites; however, whether brood parasites do so to induce the host to re‐nest and thus increase opportunities for future parasitism (i.e. ‘farming...
The adaptive value of mate retention has been studied in several socially monogamous birds, but evidence of reproductive benefits for short‐lived species is inconclusive. Most studies come from northern latitudes, but more research on tropical birds is needed, as these species typically show higher survival rates and longer pair bonds than those fr...
Understanding how and where individuals migrate between breeding and wintering areas is important for assessing threats, identifying important areas for conservation, and determining a species’ vulnerability to changing environmental conditions. Between 2017 and 2020, we tracked post-breeding movements of 72 red phalaropes Phalaropus fulicarius wit...
Addressing urgent conservation issues, like the drastic declines of North American migratory birds, requires creative, evidence-based, efficient, and collaborative approaches. Over 50% of monitored North American shorebird populations have lost over 50% of their abundance since 1980. To address these declines, we developed a partnership of scientis...
Understanding how and where individuals migrate between breeding and wintering areas is important for assessing threats, identifying important areas for conservation, and determining a species’ vulnerability to changing environmental conditions. Between 2017 and 2020, we tracked post-breeding movements of 72 Red Phalaropes (Phalaropus fulicarius) w...
In socially monogamous bird species, extrapair paternity is common, but its level varies considerably within and among species. For hosts of brood parasites, the risk of brood parasitism may influence the costs of engaging in extrapair copulations (e.g., leaving the nest undefended) and the benefits of having extrapair young (e.g., spreading the ri...
Undeveloped eggs occur frequently in birds and are often considered infertile, and discarded. However, the majority of undeveloped eggs may in fact have been fertilised and embryos might have died at an early stage. Such eggs contain valuable information, for example about offspring sex and paternity, and level of inbreeding. Obtaining such informa...
Mate guarding is typically considered a male strategy to protect paternity. However, under some circumstances, females might also benefit from guarding their mate. Female mate guarding might be particularly important in socially polyandrous species in which females compete for access to care-giving males. Because males also benefit from being near...
The spring dawn and dusk chorus of birds is a widespread phenomenon, yet its origin remains puzzling. We propose that a dawn and dusk chorus will inevitably arise if two criteria are met: (1) females leave their roost later in the morning and go to roost earlier in the evening than their mate, and (2) males sing more when separated from their mate....
In many animals, males compete for access to fertile females. The resulting sexual selection leads to sex differences in morphology and behaviour, but may also have consequences for physiology. Pectoral sandpipers are an arctic-breeding polygynous shorebird in which males perform elaborate displays around-the-clock and move over long distances to s...
In the Anthropocene, the era when the imprint of humans on nature is pervasive across the planet, it is of utmost importance to understand human relationships with other species. The aesthetics of nature, and of species, is one of the values that plays a role in shaping human-nature relationships. Birds are ubiquitous across the world. The beauty o...
Animal coloration is one of the most conspicuous aspects of human-perceived organismal diversity, yet also one of the least understood. In particular, explaining why species have specific colors (e.g., blue vs. red) has proven elusive. Here, we quantify for nearly all bird species, the proportion of the body covered by each of 12 human-visible colo...
Background
The ruff sandpiper Calidris pugnax is a Palearctic lekking shorebird with three genetic morphs determined by an autosomal inversion. Male morphs differ strikingly in body size, ornaments, endocrinology and mating behavior. Aggressive Independents represent the ancestral haplotype, while female-mimicking Faeders and semi-cooperative Satel...
Across birds, male age is the most consistent predictor of extra-pair siring success, yet little is known about age effects on paternity over the lifetime of individuals. Here, we use data from a 13-year study of a population of blue tits (Cyanistes caeruleus) to investigate how extra-pair siring success changes with age within individuals. Our res...
Artificial light at night significantly alters the predictability of the natural light cycles that most animals use as an essential Zeitgeber for daily activity. Direct light has well-documented local impacts on activity patterns of diurnal and nocturnal organisms. However, artificial light at night also contributes to an indirect illumination of t...
All animals host a microbial community within and on their reproductive organs, known as the reproductive microbiome. In free‐living birds, studies on the sexual transmission of bacteria have typically focused on a few pathogens instead of the bacterial community as a whole, despite a potential link to reproductive function. Theory predicts higher...
The germline-restricted chromosome (GRC) is likely present in all songbird species, but differs widely in size and gene content. This extra chromosome has been described as either a microchromosome with only limited basic gene content or a macrochromosome with enriched gene functions related to female gonad and embryo development. Here, we assemble...
The study of chromosomal inversion polymorphisms has received much recent attention, particularly in cases where inversions have drastic effects on phenotypes and fitness (e.g. lethality of homozygotes). Less attention has been paid to the question of the maintenance of inversion polymorphisms that show only weak effects. Here, we study the mainten...
Copulations outside the pair bond are common among socially monogamous birds, but males differ in their extrapair siring success. A large body of research has focused on the ultimate causes and consequences of this variation, but the behavioural mechanisms underlying extrapair siring success remain poorly understood. Previous work showed that male...
Urbanization is transforming ecosystems at a global scale and at an increasing rate, and its profound consequences for wildlife have been well documented. Understanding how animals thrive in the urban environment and how this environment affects (co-)evolutionary processes remains an important challenge. Urban environments can provide resources suc...
Differences in the strength of sexual selection between males and females can lead to sexual dimorphism. Extra-pair paternity (EPP) can increase the variance in male reproductive success and hence the opportunity for sexual selection. Previous research on birds suggests that EPP drives the evolution of dimorphism in plumage colour and in body size....
Extra-pair paternity occurs frequently in socially monogamous birds, but there is substantial variation in extra-pair siring success among males. Several studies have shown that siring success relates to the timing of morning activity, with the earliest active males being more successful, suggesting that early activity is important for acquiring ex...
The arms race between brood parasites and their hosts provides a classic model to study coevolution. Hosts often reject the parasitic egg, and brood parasites should therefore select host nests in which the colour of the eggs best matches that of their own. Although this hypothesis has received some support, direct experimental evidence is still la...
Many animals make visits outside of their territory during the breeding period, but these are typically infrequent and difficult to observe. As a consequence, comprehensive data on extra-territorial movements at the population-level are scarce and the function of this behavior remains poorly understood. Using an automated nest-box visit tracking sy...
Identifying the environmental drivers of variation in fitness‐related traits is a central objective in ecology and evolutionary biology. Temporal fluctuations of these environmental drivers are often synchronized at large spatial scales. Yet, whether synchronous environmental conditions can generate spatial synchrony in fitness‐related trait values...
Most vertebrates, including all mammals and birds, are sexually reproducing organisms. The implication of sexual reproduction is that an adult bird exists because a male transferred sperm to the reproductive tract of a female during copulation, one of the sperm fertilized an egg, and the ensuing embryo developed into an individual male or female th...
Brood parasitic cuckoos and their hosts serve as model systems for studying host–parasite coevolution. Egg-rejection behavior constitutes an effective defense against brood parasitism, but some host species show phenotypic plasticity in egg-rejection behavior. Direct exposure to a cuckoo near the nest can increase egg-rejection likelihood, and long...
We describe a new taxon of terrestrial bird of the genus Aphrastura (rayaditos) inhabiting the Diego Ramírez Archipelago, the southernmost point of the American continent. This archipelago is geographically isolated and lacks terrestrial mammalian predators as well as woody plants, providing a contrasted habitat to the forests inhabited by the othe...
Many birds use carotenoids to colour their plumage yellow to red. Because birds cannot synthesise carotenoids, they need to obtain these pigments from food, although some species metabolise dietary carotenoids (which are often yellow) into derived carotenoids (often red).
Here, we study the occurrence of yellow and red carotenoid‐based plumage colo...
Understanding the targets of selection associated with changes in behavioral traits represents an important challenge of current evolutionary research. Owls (Strigiformes) are a diverse group of birds, most of which are considered nocturnal raptors. However, a few owl species independently adopted a diurnal lifestyle in their recent evolutionary hi...
In species with biparental care, coordination of parental behaviour between pair members increases reproductive success. Coordination is difficult if opportunities to communicate are scarce, which might have led to the evolution of elaborate nest relief rituals in species facing a low predation risk. However, whether such conspicuous rituals also e...
The phenology of many species shows strong sensitivity to climate change; however, with few large scale intra-specific studies it is unclear how such sensitivity varies over a species’ range. We document large intra-specific variation in phenological sensitivity to temperature using laying date information from 67 populations of two co-familial Eur...
Sex-bias in breeding dispersal is considered the norm in many taxa, and the magnitude and direction of such sex-bias is expected to correlate with the social mating system. We used local return rates in shorebirds as an index of breeding site fidelity, and hence as an estimate of the propensity for breeding dispersal, and tested whether variation i...
Culturally transmitted communication signals – such as human language or bird song – can change over time through cultural drift, and the resulting dialects may consequently enhance the separation of populations. However, the emergence of song dialects has been considered unlikely when songs are highly individual-specific, as in the zebra finch (Ta...
Chromosomal inversions frequently underlie major phenotypic variation maintained by divergent selection within and between sexes. Here we examine whether and how intralocus conflicts contribute to balancing selection stabilizing an autosomal inversion polymorphism in the ruff Calidris pugnax. In this lekking shorebird, three male mating morphs (Ind...
Investigating whether mating patterns are biased in relation to kinship in isolated populations can provide a better understanding of the occurrence of inbreeding avoidance mechanisms in wild populations. Here, we report on the genetic relatedness (r) among breeding pairs in a relict population of Thorn‐tailed Rayadito (Aphrastura spinicauda) in no...
Significance
Most if not all songbirds possess a germline-restricted chromosome (GRC) which is believed to be exclusively maternally inherited. However, we show that, in the zebra finch, the GRC can also be paternally inherited and that the potential for paternal inheritance may differ between families. We further show that the genetic diversity of...
Understanding the genomic landscape of adaptation is central to the understanding of microevolution in wild populations. Genomic targets of selection and the underlying genomic mechanisms of adaptation can be elucidated by genome-wide scans for past selective sweeps or by scans for direct fitness associations. We sequenced and assembled 150 haploty...
In socially monogamous species, extrapair paternity typically results from extrapair copulations, but it can also be due to rapid mate switching. Oring, Fleischer, Reed, and Marsden (1992, Nature, 359 (6396), 631–633) proposed a mechanism to explain the occurrence of extrapair paternity in sequentially polyandrous species: sperm stored by females f...
Migratory birds undertake long and challenging journeys that have selected for a suite of adaptations from sensory mechanisms that facilitate orientation to extreme feats of endurance that push physiological limits. Recent work on two distantly related species revealed that migrating individuals increase their flight altitude dramatically during th...
Female mate choice is thought to be responsible for the evolution of many extravagant male ornaments and displays, but the costs of being too selective may hinder the evolution of choosiness. Selection against choosiness may be particularly strong in socially monogamous mating systems, because females may end up without a partner and forego reprodu...
Leaving the nest is a key transition in the life of altricial birds, whereby fledging decisions should depend on multiple factors, including the risk of predation. High postfledging predation risk may favour fledging at a more advanced stage of development, if more developed fledglings are better at escaping predation, or together with others. Whil...
The transition from nestling to fledgling is a key moment in the development of altricial birds. Mortality immediately after fledging is typically high and selection should favour fledging strategies that maximize the chance of survival. While several studies have examined the influence of ecological conditions or nestling development on the timing...
Individual-specific mate preferences are thought to be widespread, but they are still poorly understood in terms of mechanisms and function. Earlier work on a songbird (the zebra finch, Taeniopygia guttata) showed predominantly individual-specific mate preferences and signs of behavioural incompatibility with certain partners. However, the phenotyp...
In many socially monogamous bird species, females produce offspring sired by males other than their social partner. A large body of research has aimed to elucidate the evolutionary causes and consequences of such extra‐pair paternity, but relatively little is known about the underlying behaviour. The number of sperm on the egg's perivitelline layer...
The propulsion of sperm cells via movement of the flagellum is of vital importance for successful fertilization. While the exact mechanism of energy production for this movement varies between species, in avian species energy is thought to come predominantly from the mitochondria located in the sperm midpiece. Larger midpieces may contain more mito...
Biparental care requires coordination between parents. Such coordination might prove difficult if opportunities to communicate are scarce, which might have led to the evolution of elaborate and noisy nest relief rituals in species facing a low risk of predation. However, whether such conspicuous rituals also evolved in species that avoid predation...
Chromosomal inversions frequently underlie major phenotypic variation maintained by divergent selection within and between sexes. Here we examine whether and how intralocus conflicts contribute to balancing selection stabilizing an autosomal inversion polymorphism in the ruff Calidris pugnax. In this lekking shorebird, three male mating morphs (Ind...
Extra‐pair paternity (EPP) is a key aspect of the mating behaviour of birds and its frequency varies widely among populations and species. Several hypotheses predict patterns of geographical variation in the occurrence and frequency of EPP, but a global‐scale study on variation in this trait is still lacking. We collected data on EPP from 663 popul...
In species that are subject to brood parasitism, individuals often vary in their responses to parasitic eggs, with some rejecting the eggs while others do not. While some factors, such as host age (breeding experience), the degree of egg matching and the level of perceived risk of brood parasitism have been shown to influence host decisions, much o...
Individuals differ in the quantity and quality of their associations with conspecifics. The resulting variation in the positions that individuals occupy within their social environment can affect several aspects of life history, including reproduction. While research increasingly shows how social factors can predict dyadic mating patterns (who will...
Female mate choice is thought to be responsible for the evolution of many extravagant male ornaments and displays, but the costs of being too selective may hinder the evolution of choosiness. Selection against choosiness should be strongest in socially monogamous mating systems, because females may end up without a partner and forego reproduction,...
In altricial birds, leaving the nest is a key life history transition associated with a high risk of mortality. Studies of numerous species have shown that young typically fledge early in the day, and it is often asserted that early fledging is important for survival; however, evidence for this hypothesis is limited. We used an automated monitoring...
Classic explanations for polygyny consider habitat, genetic makeup and paternal care, but little attention has been paid to social inertia. We studied facultative social polygyny in a population of Blue Tits Cyanistes caeruleus with a low rate of polygyny (3% of males across 12 years). Occurrence of polygyny was best predicted by social turnover af...
Most birds are socially monogamous with both parents providing offspring care, but sometimes individuals are observed to provision at a nest that is not their own. One possible explanation for this behaviour is that it is a fitness maximising strategy by males who have copulated with the female and hence potentially sired extra‐pair offspring in th...