Journal article
How might magnetic secular variation impact avian philopatry?
- Abstract:
- A tendency to return to the natal/breeding site, ‘philopatry’, is near ubiquitous amongst migratory birds. It has long been suggested that a magnetic ‘map’ could underpin such movements, though it is unclear how a magnetic map might be impacted by gradual drift in the Earth’s magnetic field (‘secular variation’). Here, using the International Geomagnetic Reference Field, we quantified how secular variation translates to movement in the implied positions at which combinations of different magnetic cues (inclination, declination and intensity) intersect, noting that the magnitude of such movements is determined by the acute intersection angle between the isolines in question, and the direction of one isoline’s movement relative to the other. We propose that magnetic parameters varying in a near-parallel arrangement are unlikely to be used as a bi-coordinate map during philopatry, but that birds could use near-orthogonal magnetic gradient cues as a bi-coordinate map if augmented with navigation using more local cues. We further suggest that the use of uni-coordinate magnetic information may provide a philopatry mechanism that is substantially less impacted by secular variation than a bi-coordinate ‘map’. We propose that between-year shifts in the position of magnetic coordinates might provide a priori predictions for changes in the breeding sites of migratory birds.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 2.2MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s00359-021-01533-y
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Journal of Comparative Physiology A: Sensory, Neural, and Behavioral Physiology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 208
- Issue:
- 2021
- Pages:
- 145–154
- Publication date:
- 2022-02-12
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-12-17
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1432-1351
- ISSN:
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0340-7594
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1226822
- Local pid:
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pubs:1226822
- Deposit date:
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2021-12-22
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Wynn et al
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2022. This 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/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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