An amazing discovery: bird navigation based on olfaction

Wallraff, Hans Georg

doi:10.1242/jeb.109348

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…Procellariiform seabirds are some of nature’s greatest navigators. The results of two recent displacement experiments have supported the case that, like pigeons over land 1 , 2 , Procellariiform seabirds (albatrosses, shearwaters and petrels) might make use of olfactory information to navigate over large distances across seascapes. In the first displacement 3 , Atlantic Cory’s shearwaters, Calonectris borealis , breeding in the Azores were released 800 km in the mid Atlantic ocean and either deprived of their olfactory sense by washing of the olfactory mucosa with zinc sulphate or subject to magnetic perturbation by carrying strong neodymium mobile magnets attached to their heads.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Anosmia impairs homing orientation but not foraging behaviour in free-ranging shearwaters

Padget

Dell’Ariccia

Gagliardo

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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Shearwaters deprived of their olfactory sense before being displaced to distant sites have impaired homing ability but it is unknown what the role of olfaction is when birds navigate freely without their sense of smell. Furthermore, treatments used to induce anosmia and to disrupt magneto-reception in displacement experiments might influence non-specific factors not directly related to navigation and, as a consequence, the results of displacement experiments can have multiple interpretations. To address this, we GPS-tracked the free-ranging foraging trips of incubating Scopoli’s shearwaters within the Mediterranean Sea. As in previous experiments, shearwaters were either made anosmic with 4% zinc sulphate solution, magnetically impaired by attachment of a strong neodymium magnet or were controls. We found that birds from all three treatments embarked on foraging trips, had indistinguishable at-sea schedules of behaviour and returned to the colony having gained mass. However, we found that in the pelagic return stage of their foraging trips, anosmic birds were not oriented towards the colony though coastal navigation was unaffected. These results support the case for zinc sulphate having a specific effect on the navigational ability of shearwaters and thus the view that seabirds consult an olfactory map to guide them across seascapes.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Anosmia impairs homing orientation but not foraging behaviour in free-ranging shearwaters

Padget

Dell’Ariccia

Gagliardo

et al. 2017

Sci Rep

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“…According to this hypothesis, pigeons develop an olfactory map by learning the wind-borne odours in association with the direction of the winds blowing at home. When displaced to a non-familiar location, they are able to determine the direction of displacement on the basis of the prevalent local odourants at the release site, by recalling the direction from which these odourants were blown at the home area (see Papi 1986;Wallraff 2005Wallraff , 2015Gagliardo 2013 for reviews on the subject). Extensive research on pigeon navigation accumulated a considerable amount of data consistently supporting a specific role of local environmental odours in pigeon navigation (see Wallraff 2005 for refs).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Only natural local odours allow homeward orientation in homing pigeons released at unfamiliar sites

2018

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According to the olfactory navigation hypothesis, birds are able to exploit the spatial distribution of environmental odourants to determine the direction of displacement and navigate from non-familiar locations. The so-called "olfactory activation hypothesis" challenged the specific role of olfactory cues in navigation by suggesting that olfactory stimuli only activate a navigational system that is based on non-olfactory cues, predicting that even artificial odourants alone are sufficient to allow unimpaired navigation. In this experiment, we compared tracks of experimental birds exposed to different olfactory stimuli before being made anosmic at the release site prior to release. One group of pigeons was exposed to purified air enriched with artificial odourants, while a second group was exposed to environmental air. The birds stimulated with artificial nonsense odourants displayed several behavioural differences from both untreated controls and anosmic pigeons exposed to environmental air prior to release: nonsense odourants birds were unable to determine the home direction, they mostly flew within a space outside the homeward oriented quadrant, and they flew shorter distances on the day of release. Our data failed to support a mere activational role of olfactory stimuli in navigation, and are consistent with the olfactory navigation hypothesis.

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“…If it really exists, then how does olfactory navigation work? This very interesting question has been analysed only in the context of the navigation mechanisms of homing pigeons ( Columba livia ) (see 13 , 14 and references therein). It has been hypothesised that these birds use ratios of concentration between dominant odors in the landscape, which appear more stable in time than odor concentration itself 15 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Olfactory-cued navigation in shearwaters: linking movement patterns to mechanisms

Abolaffio

Reynolds

Cecere

et al. 2018

Sci Rep

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After foraging in the open ocean pelagic birds can pinpoint their breeding colonies, located on remote islands in visually featureless seascapes. This remarkable ability to navigate over vast distances has been attributed to the birds being able to learn an olfactory map on the basis of wind-borne odors. Odor-cued navigation has been linked mechanistically to displacements with exponentially-truncated power-law distributions. Such distributions were previously identified in three species of Atlantic and Mediterranean shearwaters but crucially it has not been demonstrated that these distributions are wind-speed dependent, as expected if navigation was olfactory-cued. Here we show that the distributions are wind-speed dependent, in accordance with theoretical expectations. We thereby link movement patterns to underlying generative mechanisms. Our novel analysis is consistent with the results of more traditional, non-mathematical, invasive methods and thereby provides independent evidence for olfactory-cued navigation in wild birds. Our non-invasive diagnostic tool can be applied across taxa, potentially allowing for the assessment of its pervasiveness.

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An amazing discovery: bird navigation based on olfaction

Cited by 10 publications

References 25 publications

Anosmia impairs homing orientation but not foraging behaviour in free-ranging shearwaters

Anosmia impairs homing orientation but not foraging behaviour in free-ranging shearwaters

Only natural local odours allow homeward orientation in homing pigeons released at unfamiliar sites

Olfactory-cued navigation in shearwaters: linking movement patterns to mechanisms

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