Seen same-sex pairs in your field site? You’re not alone, but the literature hasn’t caught up. Our main takeaway is simple: if you see them, report them. We need better data to ask better questions.

Illustration credit to the exceptionally talented @bertillemohring.bsky.social

We think this is an important gap - there are many interesting adaptive & non-adaptive explanations for same-sex pairing in birds (and other taxa), but without data, we can't test them. With the right data, we could answer a wealth of fascinating Qs about behaviour, evolution & ecology. 3/n

This ended up being a pretty quick project because it turns out the literature is very small. Yet when we asked fellow researchers, a sizeable number had seen same-sex pairs in their study systems. So where are the publications? 2/n

Hi @asab-spring-2025.bsky.social @asab.org - it looks like it's not possible to submit an abstract without registering at the same time. Can you confirm this is the case? Thanks!

Congratulations Alice!! 🥳🐧