Magnetoreception in birds and its use for long-distance migration

Magnetic field effects in biology from the perspective of the radical pair mechanism

“…They concluded that DNA synthesis is magnetic-dependent 383,384 . In the same system, they further observed that if Mg 2+ ion is replaced by stable isotopes of calcium ion, 40 Ca 2+ and 43 Ca 2+ (with nuclear spins of 0, 7/2, respectively), the enzyme catalytic reactions will be isotope-dependent, such that 43 Ca 2+ promoted enzyme hyper-suppression leading to a residual synthesis of shorted DNA fragments compared to 40 Ca 2+385 . They repeated the same experiment but his time instead of Mg 2+ ion stable isotopes of zinc, 64 Zn 2+ and 67 Zn 2+ (with nuclear spins of 0, 5/2, respectively) were used.…”

“…However, there is a promising quantum physics (or spin chemistry) concept that can account for the effects of such weak fields, namely the radical pair mechanism 26,27 . This mechanism, which is an example of the emerging field of quantum biology [28][29][30][31][32] , has been studied in significant detail in the comparatively narrow context of bird magnetoreception [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40] , where it is accepted as one of the leading potential explanations for how birds sense magnetic fields, and in particular the Earth's magnetic field, for the purpose of navigation.…”

Magnetic field effects in biology from the perspective of the radical pair mechanism

“…However, there is a promising quantum physics (or spin chemistry) concept that can account for the effects of such weak fields, namely the radical pair mechanism [25,26]. This mechanism, which is an example of the emerging field of quantum biology [27][28][29][30][31], has been studied in significant detail in the comparatively narrow context of bird magnetoreception [32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39], where it is accepted as one of the leading potential explanations for how birds sense magnetic fields, and in particular the Earth's magnetic field, for the purpose of navigation. It is known that birds and amphibians, and in all likelihood other vertebrates, have not one but two magnetoreception mechanisms, a magnetite-based detector that provides the high sensitivity necessary for sensing weak spatial gradients in the magnetic field [40,41] and a light-dependent magnetic compass that underlies a magnetic map sense [42].…”

Simulating geomagnetic bird navigation using novel high-resolution geomagnetic data

“…Birds rely on accurate and effective navigational mechanism especially for long-distance migration (Alerstam, 1987;Baker and Mather, 1982;Gwinner, 1977;Mouritsen, 2015;Thorup and Holland, 2009;Tryjanowski et al, 2002). It is widely believed that migratory birds use multifactorial navigation mechanisms which is defined as using several different cues for navigation (Holland et al, 2009;Mouritsen, 2015;Wiltschko and Wiltschko, 1996).…”

“…Birds rely on accurate and effective navigational mechanism especially for long-distance migration (Alerstam, 1987;Baker and Mather, 1982;Gwinner, 1977;Mouritsen, 2015;Thorup and Holland, 2009;Tryjanowski et al, 2002). It is widely believed that migratory birds use multifactorial navigation mechanisms which is defined as using several different cues for navigation (Holland et al, 2009;Mouritsen, 2015;Wiltschko and Wiltschko, 1996). These can be based on visual (Cochran et al, 2004;Emlen, 1975;Griffin, 1952;Holland, 2003;Kramer, 1953;Moore, 1987;Muheim, 2011;Sauer, 1957), olfactory (Bonadonna and Bretagnolle, 2002;Bonadonna and Gagliardo, 2021;Safi et al, 2016;Wikelski et al, 2015), pressure (O'Neill, 2013), auditory (Hagstrum, 2013;Hagstrum et al, 2000) or geomagnetic cues (Kramer, 1953;Phillips, 1996) but less is known how these mechanisms interact or function together.…”