Orientation of homing pigeons: compass orientation vs piloting by familiar landmarks

Füller, E.; Kowalski, Ute; Wiltschko, Roswitha

doi:10.1007/bf00610342

Cited by 79 publications

(37 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…3A, the birds showing the highest track inconsistencies (e.g., tracks 1-4) appeared to respond to clock-shift in the conventional way, albeit with reduced deflection. However, many birds, particularly those with small intertrack inconsistencies, flew routes or segments thereof having the form of their established routes, but in parallel (e.g., tracks [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. This parallel route recapitulation is accompanied by a distinct anticlockwise offset.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Birds displaced off route usually return directly to their memorized path, implicating direct attraction to visual landmarks (10). Nevertheless, clock-shift experiments, which attempt to alter the pigeon's dominant time-compensated suncompass, indicate that compass orientation may be used even from familiar release sites (8,(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). Thus the role of the sun-compass remains substantially unresolved, with inferences largely dependent on classical vanishing data which can only provide partial information on a bird's navigational decisions.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Pigeons combine compass and landmark guidance in familiar route navigation

Biro

Freeman²,

Meade³

et al. 2007

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

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How do birds orient over familiar terrain? In the best studied avian species, the homing pigeon (Columba livia), two apparently independent primary mechanisms are currently debated: either memorized visual landmarks provide homeward guidance directly, or birds rely on a compass to home from familiar locations. Using miniature Global Positioning System tracking technology and clock-shift procedures, we set sun-compass and landmark information in conflict, showing that experienced birds can accurately complete their memorized routes by using landmarks alone. Nevertheless, we also find that route following is often consistently offset in the expected compass direction, faithfully reproducing the shape of the track, but in parallel. Thus, we demonstrate conditions under which compass orientation and landmark guidance must be combined into a system of simultaneous or oscillating dual control.clock shift ͉ homing pigeon ͉ sun ͉ pilotage ͉ route recapitulation S equential use of a map for position fixing and a compass for onward guidance has long been regarded as the fundamental model characterizing avian navigation (1, 2). Although there continues to be disagreement over the details, it is generally accepted that over unfamiliar terrain olfactory signals are used to cue position, and a solar or magnetic compass is used to guide orientation home (reviewed in ref. 1). Curiously, much less is known about what happens when birds reach familiar terrain. Current evidence suggests that pigeons reduce dependence on navigating by atmospheric chemosignals, and instead use the memorized landscape to determine their position with respect to home (1). Nevertheless, there are two competing hypotheses for how homeward orientation is then controlled. The first hypothesis, sometimes called ''pilotage'' (2, 3), suggests that guidance is compass-independent and involves orienting directly by the pattern of visual landmarks. The second hypothesis, sometimes referred to by the term "mosaic map" (4) by some authors (5), suggests that guidance between familiar locations is compass controlled just as it is from unfamiliar locations (6). Current evidence is equivocal (7,8). We have previously shown that with extensive local experience homing pigeons come to rely on highly stereotyped, individually distinct flight paths (and that this faithful route-following does not require the magnetic compass; see ref. 9). Birds displaced off route usually return directly to their memorized path, implicating direct attraction to visual landmarks (10). Nevertheless, clock-shift experiments, which attempt to alter the pigeon's dominant time-compensated suncompass, indicate that compass orientation may be used even from familiar release sites (8,(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). Thus the role of the sun-compass remains substantially unresolved, with inferences largely dependent on classical vanishing data which can only provide partial information on a bird's navigational decisions. Using miniature precision Global Positioning System (GPS) logging technol...

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Pigeons combine compass and landmark guidance in familiar route navigation

Biro

Freeman²,

Meade³

et al. 2007

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

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“…But it might also contribute to the strong clock-shift response seen in releases from distant familiar sites. For example, Füller et al (Füller et al, 1983) is often cited as evidence for the mosaic map (Holland, 2003;Wiltschko and Wiltschko, 2009) because a large deviation was shown under clock-shift following at least 55 releases from the same site >40 km from home. But this effect might have resulted instead from the extensive, long-distance directional training prior to the crucial phase-shifted release (see also Wallraff et al, 1999).…”

Section: The Nature Of Place Recognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Route following and the pigeon's familiar area map

Guilford

Biro

2014

Journal of Experimental Biology

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Homing pigeons (Columba livia) have been the central model of avian navigation research for many decades, but only more recently has research extended into understanding their mechanisms of orientation in the familiar area. The discovery (facilitated by GPS tracking) that pigeons gradually acquire with experience individually idiosyncratic routes home to which they remain faithful on repeated releases, even if displaced off-route, has helped uncover the fundamental role of familiar visual landmarks in the avian familiar area map. We evaluate the robustness and generality of the routefollowing phenomenon by examining extant studies in depth, including the single published counter-example, providing a detailed comparison of route efficiencies, flight corridor widths and fidelity. We combine this analysis with a review of inferences that can be drawn from other experimental approaches to understanding the nature of familiar area orientation in pigeons, including experiments on landmark recognition, and response to clock-shift, to build the first detailed picture of how bird orientation develops with experience of the familiar area. We articulate alternative hypotheses for how guidance might be controlled during route following, concluding that although much remains unknown, the details of route following strongly support a pilotage interpretation. Predictable patterns of efficiency increase, but limited to the local route, typical corridor widths of 100-200 m, high-fidelity pinch-points on route, attraction to landscape edges, and a robustness to clock-shift procedures, all demonstrate that birds can associatively acquire a map of their familiar area guided (at least partially) by direct visual control from memorised local landscape features.

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“…Schmidt-Koenig & Schlichte (1972) showed that pigeons wearing frosted contact lenses (allowing them a view of the sun but no other detailed visual features) were still able to reach within a few hundred metres of the home loft. Furthermore, clock-shifted birds appear to remain predictably deviated from the homeward direction upon release from familiar sites unless actually within sight of the loft (Graue 1963;Schmidt-Koenig 1965), even after many releases (Fü ller et al 1983;Keeton 1969), although the degree of deviation is sometimes smaller than expected (e.g. Wiltschko et al 1994;Wallraff et al 1999; for a review see Chappell (1997)).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This difference in homing speed is attributed to improved recognition of the release site using familiar visual cues when pigeons are provided with a preview. There has been very little work done on the structure of the birds' map from vanishing point to home, and there are some hints from vanishing data that birds may show persistent deviations from a direct compass bearing to home even from familiar sites (Fü ller et al 1983;Kowalski & Wiltschko 1987;Wallraff 1994). Nevertheless, current opinion suggests that the role of landmarks is largely restricted to the recognition of position with subsequent goalward orientation specified by an associated compass bearing (as in the mosaic map hypothesis), and that there is no clear evidence that birds' homeward routes may be controlled by direct progression along a sequence of landscape features (a system known as pilotage).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Homing pigeons develop local route stereotypy

2005

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The mechanisms used by homing pigeons (Columba livia) to navigate homeward from distant sites have been well studied, yet the mechanisms underlying navigation within, and mapping of, the local familiar area have been largely neglected. In the local area pigeons pote ntially have access to a powerful navigational aid-a memorized landscape map. Current opinion suggests that landmarks are used only to recognize a familiar start position and that the goalward route is then achieved solely using compass orientation. We used highresolution global positioning system (GPS) loggers to track homing pigeons as they became progressively familiar with a local homing task. Here, we demonstrate that birds develop highly stereotyped yet individually distinctive routes over the landscape, which remain substantially inefficient. Precise aerial route recapitulation implies close control by localized geocentric cues. Magnetic cues are unlikely to have been used, since recapitulation remains despite magnetic disruption treatment, and olfactory cues would have been positionally unstable under the variable wind conditions, making visual landmarks the most likely cues used.

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Orientation of homing pigeons: compass orientation vs piloting by familiar landmarks

Cited by 79 publications

References 15 publications

Pigeons combine compass and landmark guidance in familiar route navigation

Pigeons combine compass and landmark guidance in familiar route navigation

Route following and the pigeon's familiar area map

Homing pigeons develop local route stereotypy

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