Biological Station Rybachy, Zoological Institute RAS, Rybachy 238535, Kaliningrad Region, Russia.
J Exp Biol. 2011 Aug 1;214(Pt 15):2540-3. doi: 10.1242/jeb.057729.
Migratory birds are able to use the sun and associated polarised light patterns, stellar cues and the geomagnetic field for orientation. No general agreement has been reached regarding the hierarchy of orientation cues. Recent data from naturally migrating North American Catharus thrushes suggests that they calibrate geomagnetic information daily from twilight cues. Similar results have been shown in caged birds in a few studies but not confirmed in others. We report that free-flying European migrants, song thrushes Turdus philomelos, released after pre-exposure to a horizontally rotated magnetic field, do not recalibrate their magnetic compass from solar cues, but rather show a simple domination of either the magnetic or the stellar compass. We suggest that different songbird species possess different hierarchies of orientation cues, depending on the geographic and ecological challenges met by the migrants.
候鸟能够利用太阳和相关的偏振光模式、恒星线索以及地磁场进行定向。关于定向线索的层次结构，尚未达成普遍共识。最近来自自然迁徙的北美的唐纳雀的数据表明，它们每天从黄昏线索中校准地磁信息。在一些研究中已经在笼养鸟类中显示出类似的结果，但在其他研究中尚未得到证实。我们报告说，在经历了水平旋转磁场的预暴露后释放的自由飞行的欧洲迁徙鸟类画眉，不会从太阳线索中重新校准它们的磁罗盘，而是简单地表现出对磁罗盘或恒星罗盘的主导。我们认为，不同的鸣禽物种具有不同的定向线索层次结构，这取决于迁徙者所面临的地理和生态挑战。
