Homing of Cory's shearwaters (<i>Calonectris diomedea)</i>carrying magnets

Massa, Bruno; Ioalè, Silvano Benvenuti Paolo; Valvo, Mario Lo; Papi, Floriano

doi:10.1080/11250009109355760

Cited by 22 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…We confirmed that magnets attached to the head of the birds, purportedly masking any geomagnetic information, do not interfere with homing behaviour, as already shown in albatrosses and other Procellariiformes Benhamou et al, 2003b;Bonadonna et al, 2003b;Bonadonna et al, 2005;Mouritsen et al, 2003), including the closely related Scopoli's shearwater in the Mediterranean (Massa et al, 1991). Conversely, olfaction seems to be necessary for shearwaters to determine the direction of displacement.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

“…However, all the experiments aimed at testing this hypothesis in seabirds have failed to demonstrate a navigational role for geomagnetic information. In particular, magnets did not interfere with the navigational abilities of Procellariiformes Benhamou et al, 2003b;Bonadonna et al, 2005;Massa et al, 1991;Mouritsen et al, 2003). As an alternative, olfactory cues have been proposed as being the basis of the navigational map over the sea Benhamou et al, 2003b;Bonadonna et al, 2003a;Wallraff and Andreae, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Oceanic navigation in Cory's shearwaters: evidence for a crucial role of olfactory cues for homing after displacement

Gagliardo

Bried

Lambardi

et al. 2013

Journal of Experimental Biology

117

118

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SUMMARYPelagic birds, which wander in the open sea most of the year and often nest on small remote oceanic islands, are able to pinpoint their breeding colony even within an apparently featureless environment, such as the open ocean. The mechanisms underlying their surprising navigational performance are still unknown. In order to investigate the nature of the cues exploited for oceanic navigation, Cory's shearwaters, Calonectris borealis, nesting in the Azores were displaced and released in open ocean at about 800km from their colony, after being subjected to sensory manipulation. While magnetically disturbed shearwaters showed unaltered navigational performance and behaved similarly to unmanipulated control birds, the shearwaters deprived of their sense of smell were dramatically impaired in orientation and homing. Our data show that seabirds use olfactory cues not only to find their food but also to navigate over vast distances in the ocean. Supplementary material available online at

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 85%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Oceanic navigation in Cory's shearwaters: evidence for a crucial role of olfactory cues for homing after displacement

Gagliardo

Bried

Lambardi

et al. 2013

Journal of Experimental Biology

117

118

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Whether the negligible effect of magnets on displaced seabirds (e.g. Massa et al 1991;Benhamou et al 2003;Bonadonna et al 2003Bonadonna et al , 2005Mouritsen et al 2003) can be explained this way remains unclear because these birds had other compass mechanisms available. The conditioning experiments with pigeons that were trained to discriminate between the presence and absence of an artificial magnetic 'anomaly' does not seem to involve the magnetic compass, but rather, the second avian magnetoreception system that is mediated by the trigeminal system and provides birds with information on magnetic intensity.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Avian magnetic compass: fast adjustment to intensities outside the normal functional window

Wiltschko

Stapput

Thalau

et al. 2006

Naturwissenschaften

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To determine how fast birds can adapt to magnetic intensities outside the normal functional window of their magnetic compass, we tested migratory birds in a magnetic field of 92,000 nT, twice the intensity of the local geomagnetic field at the test site in Frankfurt a.M., Germany. In the local field, robins showed a significant preference of their southerly migratory direction, whereas in the 92,000-nT field, they were initially disoriented. However, when the birds were preexposed to 92,000 nT for 1 h before being tested, they were able to orient under this intensity, and their behavior did not differ from that in the geomagnetic field. These data show that birds require only a short time to adjust to magnetic intensities, which they cannot spontaneously use for orientation. Interpreting these findings in view of the radical pair model (Ritz et al. 2000), this means that they can learn rather quickly to interpret novel activation patterns on their retina.

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“…Our results agree with these findings. The only previous data from seabirds showed that Cory's shearwaters Calonectris diomedea could home over short distances (<400·km) with stationary magnets attached to their head, neck and wings (Massa et al, 1991) and that the trip lengths of black-browed albatrosses Diomedea melanophris were unaffected by the attachment of strong magnets (Bonadonna et al, 2003).…”

Section: Magnetite-mediated Receptor Magnetic Map Cuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Waved albatrosses can navigate with strong magnets attached to their head

Mouritsen

Huyvaert

Frost

et al. 2003

Journal of Experimental Biology

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SUMMARY The foraging excursions of waved albatrosses Phoebastria irrorataduring incubation are ideally suited for navigational studies because they navigate between their Galápagos breeding site and one specific foraging site in the upwelling zone of Peru along highly predictable,straight-line routes. We used satellite telemetry to follow free-flying albatrosses after manipulating magnetic orientation cues by attaching magnets to strategic places on the birds' heads. All experimental, sham-manipulated and control birds, were able to navigate back and forth from Galápagos to their normal foraging sites at the Peruvian coast over 1000 km away. Birds subjected to the three treatments did not differ in the routes flown or in the duration and speed of the trips. The interpretations and implications of this result depend on which of the current suggested magnetic sensory mechanisms is actually being used by the birds.

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Homing of Cory's shearwaters (Calonectris diomedea)carrying magnets

Cited by 22 publications

References 11 publications

Oceanic navigation in Cory's shearwaters: evidence for a crucial role of olfactory cues for homing after displacement

Oceanic navigation in Cory's shearwaters: evidence for a crucial role of olfactory cues for homing after displacement

Avian magnetic compass: fast adjustment to intensities outside the normal functional window

Waved albatrosses can navigate with strong magnets attached to their head

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