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Older Female Common Waxbills Became More Subordinate During Breeding Seasons

Common waxbill perched in Kruger National Park, South Africa
Research · Behaviour

Sex differences in social dominance among common waxbills (Estrilda astrild) were small at the beginning of a five-year study in a semi-natural population in Portugal, but became pronounced as the birds aged during breeding seasons. The change was driven mainly by females becoming more subordinate, while male dominance remained comparatively stable.

The researchers followed dominance hierarchies during foraging from 2017 to 2022. Individually PIT-tagged birds were detected automatically at feeders and perches, while aggressive displacements between birds were used to estimate dominance rank. During non-breeding periods, differences between males and females remained weak. In breeding seasons, however, females showed stronger changes both across years and between seasons than males.

The study also used, retrospectively, the number of years remaining until an individual’s death as a second way of examining late-life change. Across birds, social dominance increased on average as the time remaining until death became shorter. This overall pattern coexisted with the female-specific decline in dominance during breeding seasons.

The authors interpret the results as evidence that sex differences in social behaviour are not necessarily fixed throughout adulthood. In common waxbills, ageing and breeding context changed the relationship between male and female dominance late in life. Because the birds came from a semi-natural research population, the study does not directly estimate dominance patterns in wild common waxbills.

Sources and image credit

  1. de la Torre, A., Beltrão, P., Gomes, A. C. R., & Cardoso, G. C. (2026). Sex differences in social dominance emerge late in life in a gregarious bird.Primary peer-reviewed article first published 3 September 2026. A five-year study of an ageing semi-natural common waxbill population found negligible sex differences in dominance initially, but pronounced differences during breeding seasons as birds aged. Females showed stronger longitudinal and seasonal changes, with most ageing females becoming more subordinate, whereas male dominance was more consistent. Social dominance also increased on average as years remaining until death decreased.
  2. de la Torre, A., Beltrão, P., Gomes, A. C. R., & Cardoso, G. C. (2026). Data from: Sex differences in social dominance emerge late in life in a gregarious bird.Supporting dataset. Data were collected from 2017 to 2022 at CIBIO, Campus de Vairão, Portugal, in the semi-natural research population used for the study.

Image: Common waxbill (<i>Estrilda astrild tenebridorsa</i>) in Kruger National Park, South Africa, 24 April 2024. Photo: Charles J. Sharp / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0. Representative species image; not a study bird. · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Source

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