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Attack behaviour in naive gyrfalcons is modelled by the same guidance law as in peregrine falcons, but at a lower guidance gain
The aerial hunting behaviours of birds are strongly influenced by flight morphology and ecology, but little is known of how this relates to the behavioural algorithms guiding flight. Here, we used GPS loggers to record the attack trajectories of captive-bred gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus) during thei...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
The Company of Biologists Ltd
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7938797/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33536303 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.238493 |
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author | Brighton, Caroline H. Chapman, Katherine E. Fox, Nicholas C. Taylor, Graham K. |
author_facet | Brighton, Caroline H. Chapman, Katherine E. Fox, Nicholas C. Taylor, Graham K. |
author_sort | Brighton, Caroline H. |
collection | PubMed |
description | The aerial hunting behaviours of birds are strongly influenced by flight morphology and ecology, but little is known of how this relates to the behavioural algorithms guiding flight. Here, we used GPS loggers to record the attack trajectories of captive-bred gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus) during their maiden flights against robotic aerial targets, which we compared with existing flight data from peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus). The attack trajectories of both species were well modelled by a proportional navigation (PN) guidance law, which commands turning in proportion to the angular rate of the line-of-sight to target, at a guidance gain N. However, naive gyrfalcons operate at significantly lower values of N than peregrine falcons, producing slower turning and a longer path to intercept. Gyrfalcons are less manoeuvrable than peregrine falcons, but physical constraint is insufficient to explain the lower values of N we found, which may reflect either the inexperience of the individual birds or ecological adaptation at the species level. For example, low values of N promote the tail-chasing behaviour that is typical of wild gyrfalcons and which apparently serves to tire their prey in a prolonged high-speed pursuit. Likewise, during close pursuit of typical fast evasive prey, PN will be less prone to being thrown off by erratic target manoeuvres at low guidance gain. The fact that low-gain PN successfully models the maiden attack flights of gyrfalcons suggests that this behavioural algorithm is embedded in a guidance pathway ancestral to the clade containing gyrfalcons and peregrine falcons, though perhaps with much deeper evolutionary origins. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7938797 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | The Company of Biologists Ltd |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-79387972021-03-09 Attack behaviour in naive gyrfalcons is modelled by the same guidance law as in peregrine falcons, but at a lower guidance gain Brighton, Caroline H. Chapman, Katherine E. Fox, Nicholas C. Taylor, Graham K. J Exp Biol Research Article The aerial hunting behaviours of birds are strongly influenced by flight morphology and ecology, but little is known of how this relates to the behavioural algorithms guiding flight. Here, we used GPS loggers to record the attack trajectories of captive-bred gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus) during their maiden flights against robotic aerial targets, which we compared with existing flight data from peregrine falcons (Falco peregrinus). The attack trajectories of both species were well modelled by a proportional navigation (PN) guidance law, which commands turning in proportion to the angular rate of the line-of-sight to target, at a guidance gain N. However, naive gyrfalcons operate at significantly lower values of N than peregrine falcons, producing slower turning and a longer path to intercept. Gyrfalcons are less manoeuvrable than peregrine falcons, but physical constraint is insufficient to explain the lower values of N we found, which may reflect either the inexperience of the individual birds or ecological adaptation at the species level. For example, low values of N promote the tail-chasing behaviour that is typical of wild gyrfalcons and which apparently serves to tire their prey in a prolonged high-speed pursuit. Likewise, during close pursuit of typical fast evasive prey, PN will be less prone to being thrown off by erratic target manoeuvres at low guidance gain. The fact that low-gain PN successfully models the maiden attack flights of gyrfalcons suggests that this behavioural algorithm is embedded in a guidance pathway ancestral to the clade containing gyrfalcons and peregrine falcons, though perhaps with much deeper evolutionary origins. The Company of Biologists Ltd 2021-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7938797/ /pubmed/33536303 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.238493 Text en © 2021. Published by The Company of Biologists Ltd http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium provided that the original work is properly attributed. |
spellingShingle | Research Article Brighton, Caroline H. Chapman, Katherine E. Fox, Nicholas C. Taylor, Graham K. Attack behaviour in naive gyrfalcons is modelled by the same guidance law as in peregrine falcons, but at a lower guidance gain |
title | Attack behaviour in naive gyrfalcons is modelled by the same guidance law as in peregrine falcons, but at a lower guidance gain |
title_full | Attack behaviour in naive gyrfalcons is modelled by the same guidance law as in peregrine falcons, but at a lower guidance gain |
title_fullStr | Attack behaviour in naive gyrfalcons is modelled by the same guidance law as in peregrine falcons, but at a lower guidance gain |
title_full_unstemmed | Attack behaviour in naive gyrfalcons is modelled by the same guidance law as in peregrine falcons, but at a lower guidance gain |
title_short | Attack behaviour in naive gyrfalcons is modelled by the same guidance law as in peregrine falcons, but at a lower guidance gain |
title_sort | attack behaviour in naive gyrfalcons is modelled by the same guidance law as in peregrine falcons, but at a lower guidance gain |
topic | Research Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7938797/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33536303 http://dx.doi.org/10.1242/jeb.238493 |
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