Not only pigeons: avian olfactory navigation studied by satellite telemetry

Abstract

The olfactory navigation hypothesis proposed to explain homing pigeon navigation predicts that birds learn the association of wind directions and wind-borne odours at home, and once displaced, determine the home direction on the basis of local environmental odours at the release site. This hypothesis was proposed on the basis of two kinds of empirical observations: (i) pigeons develop navigational abilities only if exposed to winds at the home loft, (ii) anosmic pigeons displaced to unfamiliar sites are unable to home. Soon after the discovery of the role of olfaction in pigeon navigation about 50 years ago, olfactory navigation became a subject of hot scientific debate. Until the beginning of the GPS era, the large body of evidence in support of olfactory navigation in pigeons, swifts and starlings consisted mainly of vanishing bearings and homing performance data. The use of GPS, allowing the observation of the pigeons' behaviour en route provided further compelling evidence of the role of olfactory cues in pigeon navigation. The development of wildlife telemetry in the past two decades produced strong evidence about the use of olfactory cues, also in navigation of some species of wild birds. Wild birds artificially displaced both during

Simulation experiment to test strategies of geomagnetic navigation during long-distance bird migration

“…A major hurdle is calculating similar raster surfaces that account for other navigation strategies. For example, another proposed strategy for migratory bird navigation across featureless expanses is olfactory navigation [ 79 ]. It is at present not possible to study olfactory navigation in a modelling approach such as the one presented here, since data on atmospheric concentration of the volatile organic compounds (which are hypothesised to guide the birds) are not available at geographic extents and sufficient spatial and temporal resolutions that would be suitable for analysing long-distance migratory flights.…”

Moving towards a far-away goal: a foreword

“…The "amazing discovery" -as defined by Wallraff (2015) -of a navigation strategy based on olfaction for the homing pigeon has been put forward by Floriano Papi and co-workers just 50 years ago (see Papi 1989). The evidence that the sense of smell is crucial for the homing behaviour in pigeons and other birds from unfamiliar Foreword sites has been confirmed in recent years, and today the olfactory navigation in birds remains a matter of fact, supported by a large and convincing amount of empirical data (see the contributions of Bonadonna & Gagliardo 2021;.…”

“…The amount of information acquired so far has allowed us to make a huge step forward in the understanding of spatial orientation phenomena, especially with the aid of satellite tracking methods, which were largely unavailable until the last decades of the 20th century. This led to a profound change in the methods of field investigation of the homing process and migration phenology of many animal species both vertebrate (see the contributions of Bonadonna & Gagliardo 2021; and even insects such as the butterfly Danaus plexippus and the dragonfly Anax junius (Knight et al 2019). Nevertheless, in the field of bird migratory orientation, some techniques such as the Emlen funnels are still useful not only for passerine but also for other bird species (see Vanni et al 2021).…”

Onto the sense of smell in macaws, amazons and toucans: can they use volatile cues of fruits to make foraging decisions?

“…For many decades, the sense of smell was considered of low relevance in bird biology, and many authors suggested that birds were microsmatic except for some Wallraff et al 1995;Roper 1999;Wallraff 2004;Holland et al 2009;Gagliardo 2013;Gagliardo et al 2013;Wikelski et al 2015;Bonadonna & Gagliardo 2021). Starlings and blue tits use volatile cues to select certain plants to build their nests and those chemical cues seem to be associated with biocidal properties (Clark & Mason 1987;Petit et al 2002).…”