Bingman V
J Exp Biol. 1998 Jun;201 (Pt 12):755-60. doi: 10.1242/jeb.201.5.755.
The importance of atmospheric odours for homing pigeon navigation in a desert environment was tested using birds from two lofts located in the Sonoran desert near Tucson, Arizona, USA. When released from a familiar training site, experienced control pigeons and pigeons given intranasal injections of zinc sulphate to produce anosmia both displayed good homeward orientation and homed rapidly. When released from two unfamiliar locations, in contrast, the controls continued to display good homing performance while the zinc-sulphate-treated pigeons homed poorly. Significant differences in vanishing bearings, homing time and homing success were recorded. When a group of control and a group of zinc-sulphate-treated inexperienced pigeons were released from two unfamiliar locations, both groups homed poorly. Nonetheless, the controls still outperformed the zinc-sulphate-treated birds, the most notable result being a significant difference in homing success. Taken together, these results highlight the importance of atmospheric odours for the operation of the navigational map of the homing pigeon in a desert environment and, together with previous experiments, demonstrate that the role of atmospheric odours in homing does not seem to vary in any salient way with ambient climatic conditions.
利用来自美国亚利桑那州图森市附近索诺兰沙漠中两个鸽舍的鸽子，对大气气味在沙漠环境中家鸽导航的重要性进行了测试。当从熟悉的训练地点放飞时，经验丰富的对照鸽子和经鼻内注射硫酸锌导致嗅觉缺失的鸽子都表现出良好的归巢方向并迅速归巢。相比之下，当从两个不熟悉的地点放飞时，则对照鸽子继续表现出良好的归巢性能，而经硫酸锌处理的鸽子归巢能力很差。记录到消失方位、归巢时间和归巢成功率存在显著差异。当一组对照鸽子和一组经硫酸锌处理的无经验鸽子从两个不熟悉的地点放飞时，两组归巢能力都很差。尽管如此，对照鸽子的表现仍优于经硫酸锌处理的鸽子，最显著的结果是归巢成功率存在显著差异。综合来看，这些结果凸显了大气气味在沙漠环境中家鸽导航地图运作中的重要性，并且与之前的实验一起表明，大气气味在归巢中的作用似乎不会因周围气候条件而有任何显著变化。
