Avian olfactory navigation: its empirical foundation and conceptual state

Wallraff, Hans Georg

doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2003.06.007

Cited by 160 publications

(134 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…Our findings suggest that, similar to honeybees and pigeons (3,15,16), bats are able to home to one of two goal locations-trees or cavesindicating flexible navigational abilities. However, these results cannot help distinguish between map-based navigation guided by large-scale odor gradients (24) or magnetic gradients (25), versus navigation using cognitive-map mechanisms relying on selftriangulation based on distal visual landmarks (26).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large-scale navigational map in a mammal

Tsoar

Nathan

Bartan

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

184

150

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Navigation, the ability to reach desired goal locations, is critical for animals and humans. Animal navigation has been studied extensively in birds, insects, and some marine vertebrates and invertebrates, yet we are still far from elucidating the underlying mechanisms in other taxonomic groups, especially mammals. Here we report a systematic study of the mechanisms of long-range mammalian navigation. High-resolution global positioning system tracking of bats was conducted here, which revealed high, fast, and very straight commuting flights of Egyptian fruit bats (Rousettus aegyptiacus) from their cave to remote fruit trees. Bats returned to the same individual trees night after night. When displaced 44 km south, bats homed directly to one of two goal locationsfamiliar fruit tree or cave-ruling out beaconing, route-following, or path-integration mechanisms. Bats released 84 km south, within a deep natural crater, were initially disoriented (but eventually left the crater toward the home direction and homed successfully), whereas bats released at the crater-edge top homed directly, suggesting navigation guided primarily by distal visual landmarks. Taken together, these results provide evidence for a large-scale "cognitive map" that enables navigation of a mammal within its visually familiar area, and they also demonstrate the ability to home back when translocated outside the visually familiar area.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large-scale navigational map in a mammal

Tsoar

Nathan

Bartan

et al. 2011

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

184

150

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The most detailed investigations of orientation by olfactory cues in birds have been done on pigeons, swifts and starlings (Wallraff 2004). While considerable evidence suggests that pigeons, in particular, can use olfactory maps to assist them in navigating over large (hundreds of square kilometres) spatial scales, olfactory orientation has often been challenged on purely conceptual grounds.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sensitivity to dimethyl sulphide suggests a mechanism for olfactory navigation by seabirds

2005

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Petrels, albatrosses and other procellariiform seabirds have an excellent sense of smell, and routinely navigate over the world's oceans by mechanisms that are not well understood. These birds travel thousands of kilometres to forage on ephemeral prey patches at variable locations, yet they can quickly and efficiently find their way back to their nests on remote islands to provision chicks, even with magnetic senses experimentally disrupted. Over the seemingly featureless ocean environment, local emissions of scents released by phytoplankton reflect bathymetric features such as shelf breaks and seamounts. These features suggest an odour landscape that may provide birds with orientation cues. We have previously shown that concentrated experimental deployments of one such compound, dimethyl sulphide (DMS), attracts procellariiforms at sea, suggesting that some species can use it as a foraging cue. Here we present the first physiological demonstration that an Antarctic seabird can detect DMS at biogenic levels. We further show that birds can use DMS as an orientation cue in a non-foraging context within a concentration range that they might naturally encounter over the ocean.

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“…Obviously, the question of turbulence looms large, yet animals are highly adapted to decode turbulence (18)(19)(20), and odorant distributions may be stable, even in air (21). Olfactory systems are also notably integrated with mechanosensory systems to measure turbulence, such as vibrissae (mammals), antennae (insects), antennules (crustaceans), and lateral lines (fish) (22,23).…”

Section: Convergence In Olfactory System Structure and Functionmentioning

confidence: 99%

From chemotaxis to the cognitive map: The function of olfaction

Jacobs

2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

170

176

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A paradox of vertebrate brain evolution is the unexplained variability in the size of the olfactory bulb (OB), in contrast to other brain regions, which scale predictably with brain size. Such variability appears to be the result of selection for olfactory function, yet there is no obvious concordance that would predict the causal relationship between OB size and behavior. This discordance may derive from assuming the primary function of olfaction is odorant discrimination and acuity. If instead the primary function of olfaction is navigation, i.e., predicting odorant distributions in time and space, variability in absolute OB size could be ascribed and explained by variability in navigational demand. This olfactory spatial hypothesis offers a single functional explanation to account for patterns of olfactory system scaling in vertebrates, the primacy of olfaction in spatial navigation, even in visual specialists, and proposes an evolutionary scenario to account for the convergence in olfactory structure and function across protostomes and deuterostomes. In addition, the unique percepts of olfaction may organize odorant information in a parallel map structure. This could have served as a scaffold for the evolution of the parallel map structure of the mammalian hippocampus, and possibly the arthropod mushroom body, and offers an explanation for similar flexible spatial navigation strategies in arthropods and vertebrates.sensory | memory | orientation | limbic

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Avian olfactory navigation: its empirical foundation and conceptual state

Cited by 160 publications

References 78 publications

Large-scale navigational map in a mammal

Large-scale navigational map in a mammal

Sensitivity to dimethyl sulphide suggests a mechanism for olfactory navigation by seabirds

From chemotaxis to the cognitive map: The function of olfaction

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