Linked Life Data

15562449

Source:http://linkedlifedata.com/resource/pubmed/id/15562449

Statements in which the resource exists as a subject.
PredicateObject
rdf:type
lifeskim:mentions
pubmed:issue
12
pubmed:dateCreated
2004-12-7
pubmed:abstractText
Several workers have investigated the effect of anosmia on pigeon navigation in different geographical locations because it has been suggested that homing behavior is based on different cues, such as olfactory cues, the Earth's magnetic field or infrasound, and that in the absence of one cue another would be used. In this situation, no cue is universally indispensable, including olfactory ones. In order to extend such observations to a novel biome, we observed the behaviour of 192 young inexperienced birds raised in southeastern Brazil, a tropical area where olfactory tests had never been run before. The birds were released from eight symmetrically distributed sites 17 to 44 km from the loft. Half of these birds (experimentals) had been made temporarily anosmic by washing their olfactory mucosae with 4% solution of ZnSO4 the day before release, while controls were treated with Ringer solution. The results of release tests showed that anosmia totally impaired the navigational performance of experimental birds, which were unable to home from sites at relatively short distances from home (34-44 km) and whose pooled initial bearings produced a (negative) homeward component not significantly different from 0. Homing performance of controls was significantly better, and their pooled vanishing bearings had a significant homeward component, in spite of much scatter in individual releases. We conclude that pigeon homing in the study area depends on olfactory information, even though local environmental conditions in the interior of the State of Sao Paulo, as in several other parts of the world, do not appear to be as favorable as Italy for the development of efficient olfactory navigation.
pubmed:language
eng
pubmed:journal
pubmed:citationSubset
IM
pubmed:status
MEDLINE
pubmed:month
Dec
pubmed:issn
1548-8969
pubmed:author
pubmed:issnType
Print
pubmed:day
1
pubmed:volume
301
pubmed:owner
NLM
pubmed:authorsComplete
Y
pubmed:pagination
961-7
pubmed:dateRevised
2009-10-5
pubmed:meshHeading
pubmed:year
2004
pubmed:articleTitle
Olfaction and the homing ability of pigeons raised in a tropical area in Brazil.
pubmed:affiliation
Dipartimento di Etologia, Ecologia ed Evoluzione, University of Pisa, Via Volta 6, I-56126, Pisa, Italy.
pubmed:publicationType
Journal Article, Comparative Study, Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't