The role of visual landmarks in the avian familiar area map

Holland, Richard A.

doi:10.1242/jeb.00365

Cited by 56 publications

(62 citation statements)

References 56 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The cues used by the bats to indicate their position can only be speculated on at this stage, because this was outside the normal home range of this species (20) and thus it is unlikely that a familiar area map was being used (30). After decades of research, the arguments about which cues are necessary for locating position still persist in homing birds (31,32), and thus it remains one of the most challenging questions for the recently relaunched field of bat navigation (33).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A nocturnal mammal, the greater mouse-eared bat, calibrates a magnetic compass by the sun

Holland

Borissov

Siemers

2010

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

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Recent evidence suggests that bats can detect the geomagnetic field, but the way in which this is used by them for navigation to a home roost remains unresolved. The geomagnetic field may be used by animals both to indicate direction and to locate position. In birds, directional information appears to be derived from an interaction of the magnetic field with either the sun or the stars, with some evidence suggesting that sunset/sunrise provides the primary directional reference by which a magnetic compass is calibrated daily. We demonstrate that homing greater mouseeared bats (Myotis myotis) calibrate a magnetic compass with sunset cues by testing their homing response after exposure to an altered magnetic field at and after sunset. Magnetic manipulation at sunset resulted in a counterclockwise shift in orientation compared with controls, consistent with sunset calibration of the magnetic field, whereas magnetic manipulation after sunset resulted in no change in orientation. Unlike in birds, however, the pattern of polarization was not necessary for the calibration. For animals that occupy ecological niches where the sunset is rarely observed, this is a surprising finding. Yet it may indicate the primacy of the sun as an absolute geographical reference not only for birds but also within other vertebrate taxa.navigation | orientation | sun compass | Chiroptera | sensory ecology S ince the discovery that migrating birds can use the geomagnetic field to designate direction, research on the manner in which different animals use this cue for orientation and navigation has flourished (1-4). As a general notion, animals could potentially use the geomagnetic field for obtaining directional information, the "compass sense" (5), and/or to locate position, the "map sense" (6). In birds, a number of seemingly contradictory findings suggested that the geomagnetic field interacts with either the sun or the stars to provide directional information (7). Calibration by such celestial cues may be important in migrating animals to correct for declination error [the difference between geographical and magnetic north (8)] or to avoid increased paths through inaccuracies (9). Recent evidence suggests that polarized light cues at sunset and sunrise may provide the primary directional reference that calibrates a magnetic compass in migrating birds (8)(9)(10)(11).Surprisingly, only recently has it been shown that bats are able to detect the geomagnetic field (12-14), although so far evidence exists only for two species, one in the United States (12, 13) and one in Asia (14). Using the technique of Cochran et al. (8), in which the animal is exposed to an altered magnetic field at sunset and then released into the natural magnetic field, the results of ref. 12 suggested that, like birds, bats used the geomagnetic field to determine direction following calibration by sunset cues. However, this interpretation remains uncertain on two counts. First, the experimental design in ref. 12 involved transport in a variable magnetic field, making it...

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A nocturnal mammal, the greater mouse-eared bat, calibrates a magnetic compass by the sun

Holland

Borissov

Siemers

2010

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

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Therefore, the aim of phase-shifting was to purposely induce an initial orientation error during the test release. The error would emerge as a consequence of the demonstrated preference of pigeons to initially rely on their navigational map and coupled sun compass to determine a homeward bearing before engaging in the hypothesized corrective re-orientation behavior based on their familiarity with local landmarks [see Holland (2003) for a more complete review examining the relationship between navigational map and compass mechanisms and navigation by familiar landmarks]. Just prior to release, the dummy on the back of each pigeon was replaced with a GPS data logger.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Hippocampal‐dependent familiar area map supports corrective re‐orientation following navigational error during pigeon homing: a GPS‐tracking study

Gagliardo

Ioalè

Savini

et al. 2009

Eur J of Neuroscience

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is hypothesized that a central role of the vertebrate hippocampal formation (HF) in behavior is the learning and operation of a maplike representation of familiar landmarks and landscape features. One critical property of a map is that it should enable an individual to re-orient towards a goal location following a navigational error. To test this prediction on a spatial scale consistent with their naturally occurring behavior, control and HF-lesioned homing pigeons were trained from two locations and then subsequently released, while carrying portable GPS-tracking devices, following a phase-shift treatment. Analyses revealed that the HF-lesioned pigeons were less successful than control pigeons in re-orienting homewards following the phase-shift-induced error in their initial orientation. Furthermore, the observation that HF-lesioned pigeons were found to routinely ignore a land-sea landscape boundary when returning home from one of the release sites suggests that coarse landscape features may be an underappreciated source of navigational information for homing pigeons. The data demonstrate that, on a scale of tens of kilometers, homing pigeons are able to learn a hippocampal-dependent, map-like representation of familiar landmarks ⁄ landscape features that can support corrective re-orientation following a navigational error.

show abstract

“…(e) Association of geomagnetic intensity with other potential cues The geomagnetic field at some locations on Earth is correlated with other potential navigational cues, such as gravity (Dornfeldt 1991), surface topography (Arnould-Taylor & Malewski 1955;Matthews 1963) or other landscape features (Braithwaite & Guilford 1991;Holland 2003;Biro et al 2004;Lipp et al 2004) known to influence the homing behaviour of pigeons. This being the case, we examined how the spatial distribution of intensity at our study site varied in relation to other environmental factors which might have affected the pigeons' flight trajectories.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evidence that pigeons orient to geomagnetic intensity during homing

2007

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The influence of the Earth's magnetic field on locomotory orientation has been studied in many taxa but is best understood for homing pigeons (Columba livia). Effects of experimentally induced and naturally occurring perturbations in the geomagnetic field suggest that pigeons are sensitive to changes in geomagnetic parameters. However, whether pigeons use the Earth's magnetic field for position determination remains unknown. Here we report an apparent orientation to the intensity gradient of the geomagnetic field observed in pigeons homing from sites in and around a magnetic anomaly. From flight trajectories recorded by GPS-based tracking devices, we noted that many pigeons released at unfamiliar sites initially flew, in some cases up to several kilometres, in directions parallel and/or perpendicular to the bearing of the local intensity field. This behaviour occurred irrespective of the homeward direction and significantly more often than what was expected by random chance. Our study describes a novel behaviour which provides strong evidence that pigeons when homing detect and respond to spatial variation in the Earth's magnetic field-information of potential use for navigation.

show abstract

The role of visual landmarks in the avian familiar area map

Cited by 56 publications

References 56 publications

A nocturnal mammal, the greater mouse-eared bat, calibrates a magnetic compass by the sun

A nocturnal mammal, the greater mouse-eared bat, calibrates a magnetic compass by the sun

Hippocampal‐dependent familiar area map supports corrective re‐orientation following navigational error during pigeon homing: a GPS‐tracking study

Evidence that pigeons orient to geomagnetic intensity during homing

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About