Body condition, but not reproductive success, is associated with sociality in a colonial seabird.

Antoine Morel , Pierre-Paul Bitton

Body condition, breeding habitat quality and access to socially acquired information are generally associated with higher fitness in social animals. In colonial species that breed in dense aggregations, such as seabirds, the combined effects of these factors on reproductive success have rarely been tested together.
In this study, we investigated the relationship between fledging success, body condition, nest site quality and sociality in Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica). We first tested how social network traits were related to individual body condition and nest position on a sloped breeding site. We further tested whether fledgling success was predicted by body condition, nest position and social network traits.
We found that social connectivity was positively associated with body condition, but not with social network eigenvector centrality or transitivity. However, nest distance from the bottom of the slope was not related to sociality. Fledgling success was not affected by body condition, nest position, social connectivity, or social network eigenvector or transitivity. We suggest that social benefits may be context-dependent and could become visible when individuals experience greater ecological stressors.