Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
J R Soc Interface. 2010 Apr 6;7 Suppl 2(Suppl 2):S179-91. doi: 10.1098/rsif.2009.0491.focus. Epub 2010 Jan 13.
The first demonstrations of magnetic effects on the behaviour of migratory birds and homing pigeons in laboratory and field experiments, respectively, provided evidence for the longstanding hypothesis that animals such as birds that migrate and home over long distances would benefit from possession of a magnetic sense. Subsequent identification of at least two plausible biophysical mechanisms for magnetoreception in animals, one based on biogenic magnetite and another on radical-pair biochemical reactions, led to major efforts over recent decades to test predictions of the two models, as well as efforts to understand the ultrastructure and function of the possible magnetoreceptor cells. Unfortunately, progress in understanding the magnetic sense has been challenged by: (i) the availability of a relatively small number of techniques for analysing behavioural responses to magnetic fields by animals; (ii) difficulty in achieving reproducible results using the techniques; and (iii) difficulty in development and implementation of new techniques that might bring greater experimental power. As a consequence, laboratory and field techniques used to study the magnetic sense today remain substantially unchanged, despite the huge developments in technology and instrumentation since the techniques were developed in the 1950s. New methods developed for behavioural study of the magnetic sense over the last 30 years include the use of laboratory conditioning techniques and tracking devices based on transmission of radio signals to and from satellites. Here we consider methodological developments in the study of the magnetic sense and present suggestions for increasing the reproducibility and ease of interpretation of experimental studies. We recommend that future experiments invest more effort in automating control of experiments and data capture, control of stimulation and full blinding of experiments in the rare cases where automation is impossible. We also propose new experiments to confirm whether or not animals can detect magnetic fields using the radical-pair effect together with an alternate hypothesis that may explain the dependence on light of responses by animals to magnetic field stimuli.
最早在实验室和野外实验中分别观察到了磁场对候鸟和归巢鸽行为的影响，这为一个长期以来的假说提供了证据，即像鸟类这样远距离迁徙和归巢的动物可能受益于具有磁性感知能力。随后，在动物中发现了至少两种可能的磁感应生物物理机制，一种基于生物磁铁矿，另一种基于自由基对生化反应，这促使近几十年来人们努力验证这两种模型的预测，并努力了解可能的磁受体细胞的超微结构和功能。不幸的是，对磁感觉的理解进展受到了以下因素的挑战：（i）分析动物对磁场的行为反应的技术相对较少；（ii）使用这些技术难以获得可重复的结果；（iii）开发和实施可能带来更大实验能力的新技术存在困难。因此，尽管自 20 世纪 50 年代以来技术和仪器取得了巨大发展，但用于研究磁感觉的实验室和野外技术至今仍基本未变。过去 30 年来，用于研究磁感觉的新方法包括使用实验室条件反射技术和基于向卫星传输和接收无线电信号的跟踪设备。在这里，我们考虑了磁感觉研究中的方法学发展，并提出了提高实验研究的可重复性和解释的简单性的建议。我们建议未来的实验投入更多的精力来自动控制实验和数据捕获，控制刺激，并在极少数无法自动化的情况下对实验进行完全屏蔽。我们还提出了新的实验，以确认动物是否可以使用自由基对效应来检测磁场，同时提出了一个替代假设，该假设可能解释了动物对磁场刺激的反应对光的依赖性。
