Avian compass systems: do all migratory species possess all three?

Chernetsov, Nikita

doi:10.1111/jav.00593

Cited by 12 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…Some of his birds which had learned an incorrect celestial rotational axis did not refer to the proper rotational axis in the following year despite having had access to natural celestial rotation during the whole summer, but kept orienting by their learnt “north” star 5 . Emlen’s birds were indigo buntings and ours were European robins and even though the basic orientation mechanisms are probably identical in most night-migratory songbird species, the exact hierarchy and/or calibration rules may be species-specific 16 17 20 41 . Thus, species differences could potentially explain the differences between Emlen’s and our results.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Re-calibration of the magnetic compass in hand-raised European robins (Erithacus rubecula)

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Michalik

Thiele

et al. 2015

Sci Rep

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Migratory birds can use a variety of environmental cues for orientation. A primary calibration between the celestial and magnetic compasses seems to be fundamental prior to a bird’s first autumn migration. Releasing hand-raised or rescued young birds back into the wild might therefore be a problem because they might not have established a functional orientation system during their first calendar year. Here, we test whether hand-raised European robins that did not develop any functional compass before or during their first autumn migration could relearn to orient if they were exposed to natural celestial cues during the subsequent winter and spring. When tested in the geomagnetic field without access to celestial cues, these birds could orient in their species-specific spring migratory direction. In contrast, control birds that were deprived of any natural celestial cues throughout remained unable to orient. Our experiments suggest that European robins are still capable of establishing a functional orientation system after their first autumn. Although the external reference remains speculative, most likely, natural celestial cues enabled our birds to calibrate their magnetic compass. Our data suggest that avian compass systems are more flexible than previously believed and have implications for the release of hand-reared migratory birds.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

Re-calibration of the magnetic compass in hand-raised European robins (Erithacus rubecula)

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Michalik

Thiele

et al. 2015

Sci Rep

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“…This diversity of responses seems to parallel the situation with compass systems, where not all species (and populations?) seem to use all potentially available compass cues equally well [16]. It cries for more research into navigational maps of different migrant species, ideally in different parts of the world.…”

Section: Plos Onementioning

confidence: 99%

No evidence for the use of magnetic declination for migratory navigation in two songbird species

et al. 2020

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Determining the East-West position was a classical problem in human sea navigation until accurate clocks were manufactured and sailors were able to measure the difference between local time and a fixed reference to determine longitude. Experienced night-migratory songbirds can correct for East-West physical and virtual magnetic displacements to unknown locations. Migratory birds do not appear to possess a time-different clock sense; therefore, they must solve the longitude problem in a different way. We showed earlier that experienced adult (but not juvenile) Eurasian reed warblers (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) can use magnetic declination (the difference in direction between geographic and magnetic North) to solve this problem when they were virtually displaced from Rybachy on the eastern Baltic coast to Scotland. In this study, we aimed to test how general this effect was. Adult and juvenile European robins (Erithacus rubecula) and adult garden warblers (Sylvia borin) under the same experimental conditions did not respond to this virtual magnetic displacement, suggesting significant variation in how navigational maps are organised in different songbird migrants.

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“…However, firstly, as already mentioned, there is no direct evidence that these songbird migrants use the stellar compass but not the magnetic one during nocturnal flights (Chernetsov, 2015). Secondly, this theory cannot explain the results of the study by Chernetsov et al (2011), in which birds had access to the BMP and landmarks at sunset during the cue conflict and then were released after the stars appeared in the sky but birds did not show any type of calibration. The suggestion by Sjöberg and Muheim (2016) that it could be the topographic bias in the departure direction of song thrushes released on the Courish Spit is not tenable, because the data from another release site in mainland Kaliningrad region showed the same departure direction after release (Chernetsov et al, 2011).…”

Section: Animal Behaviourmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…2. Three types of responses to cue-conflict treatments in migratory birds, when exposed to changed magnetic field (-120° horizontally turned) under natural clear sky during autumn migration: A) Magnetic cues calibrate celestial compasses; B) Celestial cues calibrate the magnetic compass; C) The stellar or the magnetic cues are used separately without transferring information to other compasses (simple dominance of one cue, from Chernetsov et al, 2011). The black arrows represent the horizontal direction of (geo)magnetic field (the direction to magnetic North), the red arrow represents the expected direction of the birds, the blue arrow represents the expected direction of the birds if they use the magnetic compass as a primary cue reference (C, cue-conflict phase).…”

Section: ) Magnetic Cues Calibrate Celestial Compassesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We discussed this study in the previous part of the review. The study by Chernetsov et al (2011) was an attempt to replicate the work of Cochran et al (2004) in a medium-distance European species, the song thrush Turdus philomelos (Table 1C 21). Before being released with radio tags, the birds were exposed to 120° clockwise/anticlockwise shifted magnetic field with the full view of the sky near the horizon during spring and autumn migration.…”

Section: ) Simple Dominance Of One Of Compass Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A hierarchy of compass systems in migratory birds

Pakhomov

Chernetsov

2020

BioComm

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Migratory birds use several different sources of orientation information. They have at least three compass systems based on different cues: the sun and polarized light, the stars and their constellations, and the geomagnetic field. The concurrent information obtained from these three compasses is redundant, therefore the compasses need to have a hierarchy and must be calibrated relative to each other. One of the compasses should dominate the others, or some orientation cue should be used to calibrate the remaining compass systems. Results of experiments on a variety of songbird species demonstrate that while astronomical cues calibrate the magnetic compass during the pre-migratory period, strategies used during the migratory period are more diverse. In the present review, we analyze the results of all crucial cue-conflict studies, mostly performed in nocturnal songbird migrants; we also try to understand why some migratory species calibrate their magnetic compass on sunset cues while others use the geomagnetic field or stars as a primary cue source, and we examine why the previous hypothesis could not explain the findings of all cue-conflict experiments.

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Avian compass systems: do all migratory species possess all three?

Cited by 12 publications

References 23 publications

Re-calibration of the magnetic compass in hand-raised European robins (Erithacus rubecula)

Re-calibration of the magnetic compass in hand-raised European robins (Erithacus rubecula)

No evidence for the use of magnetic declination for migratory navigation in two songbird species

A hierarchy of compass systems in migratory birds

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