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The importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds

Spontaneous magnetic alignment is the simplest known directional response to the geomagnetic field that animals perform. Magnetic alignment is not a goal directed response and its relevance in the context of orientation and navigation has received little attention. Migratory songbirds, long-standing...

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Autores principales: Bianco, Giuseppe, Köhler, Robin Clemens, Ilieva, Mihaela, Åkesson, Susanne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8918448/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34997291
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-021-01536-9
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author Bianco, Giuseppe
Köhler, Robin Clemens
Ilieva, Mihaela
Åkesson, Susanne
author_facet Bianco, Giuseppe
Köhler, Robin Clemens
Ilieva, Mihaela
Åkesson, Susanne
author_sort Bianco, Giuseppe
collection PubMed
description Spontaneous magnetic alignment is the simplest known directional response to the geomagnetic field that animals perform. Magnetic alignment is not a goal directed response and its relevance in the context of orientation and navigation has received little attention. Migratory songbirds, long-standing model organisms for studying magnetosensation, have recently been reported to align their body with the geomagnetic field. To explore whether the magnetic alignment behaviour in songbirds is involved in the underlying mechanism for compass calibration, which have been suggested to occur near to sunset, we studied juvenile Eurasian reed warblers (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) captured at stopover during their first autumn migration. We kept one group of birds in local daylight conditions and an experimental group under a 2 h delayed sunset. We used an ad hoc machine learning algorithm to track the birds’ body alignment over a 2-week period. Our results show that magnetic body alignment occurs prior to sunset, but shifts to a more northeast–southwest alignment afterwards. Our findings support the hypothesis that body alignment could be associated with how directional celestial and magnetic cues are integrated in the compass of migratory birds. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00359-021-01536-9.
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spelling pubmed-89184482022-03-17 The importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds Bianco, Giuseppe Köhler, Robin Clemens Ilieva, Mihaela Åkesson, Susanne J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol Original Paper Spontaneous magnetic alignment is the simplest known directional response to the geomagnetic field that animals perform. Magnetic alignment is not a goal directed response and its relevance in the context of orientation and navigation has received little attention. Migratory songbirds, long-standing model organisms for studying magnetosensation, have recently been reported to align their body with the geomagnetic field. To explore whether the magnetic alignment behaviour in songbirds is involved in the underlying mechanism for compass calibration, which have been suggested to occur near to sunset, we studied juvenile Eurasian reed warblers (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) captured at stopover during their first autumn migration. We kept one group of birds in local daylight conditions and an experimental group under a 2 h delayed sunset. We used an ad hoc machine learning algorithm to track the birds’ body alignment over a 2-week period. Our results show that magnetic body alignment occurs prior to sunset, but shifts to a more northeast–southwest alignment afterwards. Our findings support the hypothesis that body alignment could be associated with how directional celestial and magnetic cues are integrated in the compass of migratory birds. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00359-021-01536-9. Springer Berlin Heidelberg 2022-01-07 2022 /pmc/articles/PMC8918448/ /pubmed/34997291 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-021-01536-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Paper
Bianco, Giuseppe
Köhler, Robin Clemens
Ilieva, Mihaela
Åkesson, Susanne
The importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds
title The importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds
title_full The importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds
title_fullStr The importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds
title_full_unstemmed The importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds
title_short The importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds
title_sort importance of time of day for magnetic body alignment in songbirds
topic Original Paper
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8918448/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34997291
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00359-021-01536-9
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