Project Details
Assessing magnetoreception and orientation/navigation hypotheses in free flying birds (Nav02)
Subject Area
Sensory and Behavioural Biology
Term
since 2019
Project identifier
Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 395940726
To achieve a comprehensive understanding of magnetoreception and vertebrate navigation, it is important that key behavioural results obtained in the laboratory are retested in the wild with freely-moving animals. During the first funding period, we obtained fundamental and unexpected results, namely no effects of electrosmog or a magnetic pulse on the departure direction of free-flying migratory birds. Logical follow-up questions are: Does electrosmog, which corrupts the birds’ magnetic compass in the laboratory, affect the departure decisions of migratory birds when a further compass system (e.g. star compass) is not available? Does a magnetic pulse affect the compensation ability of virtually translocated migratory birds?
DFG Programme
Collaborative Research Centres
Subproject of
SFB 1372:
Magnetoreception and navigation in vertebrates: from biophysics to brain and behaviour
Applicant Institution
Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg
Project Heads
Professor Dr. Franz Bairlein, until 12/2022; Professor Dr. Heiko Schmaljohann