Data from: Only natural local odours allow homeward orientation in homing pigeons released at unfamiliar sites

Gagliardo, Anna; Pollonara, Enrica; Wikelski, Martin

Data from: Only natural local odours allow homeward orientation in homing pigeons released at unfamiliar sites

Files

Environmental vs artificial odours and pigeon homing (data from Gagliardo et al. 2018).csv (9.16 MB)
: dataset-file

Environmental vs artificial odours and pigeon homing (data from Gagliardo et al. 2018)-reference-data.csv (17.82 KB): dataset-file

Date

2018-08-30

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.dn1b937k

Authors

Gagliardo, Anna

Pollonara, Enrica

Wikelski, Martin

Citation

Gagliardo A, Pollonara E, Wikelski M. 2018. Data from: Only natural local odours allow homeward orientation in homing pigeons released at unfamiliar sites. Movebank Data Repository. https://doi.org/10.5441/001/1.dn1b937k

Abstract

According to the olfactory navigation hypothesis, birds are able to exploit the spatial distribution of environmental odourants to determine the direction of displacement and navigate from non-familiar locations. The so-called “olfactory activation hypothesis” challenged the specific role of olfactory cues in navigation by suggesting that olfactory stimuli only activate a navigational system that is based on non-olfactory cues, predicting that even artificial odourants alone are sufficient to allow unimpaired navigation. In this experiment, we compared tracks of experimental birds exposed to different olfactory stimuli before being made anosmic at the release site prior to release. One group of pigeons was exposed to purified air enriched with artificial odourants, while a second group was exposed to environmental air. The birds stimulated with artificial nonsense odourants displayed several behavioural differences from both untreated controls and anosmic pigeons exposed to environmental air prior to release: nonsense odourants birds were unable to determine the home direction, they mostly flew within a space outside the homeward oriented quadrant, and they flew shorter distances on the day of release. Our data failed to support a mere activational role of olfactory stimuli in navigation, and are consistent with the olfactory navigation hypothesis.

Keywords

Columba livia,animal navigation,animal tracking,Columba livia,GPS logger,homing pigeon,olfaction

Taxa

Taxon

Columba livia

Common Pigeon, Rock Dove, Rock Pigeon

Sensors

Sensor

GPS

DOIs of related Publications

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-018-1277-x

URI

https://datarepository.movebank.org/handle/10255/move.780

BibTex

@misc{001/1_dn1b937k,
  title = {Data from: Only natural local odours allow homeward orientation in homing pigeons released at unfamiliar sites},
  author = {Gagliardo, A and Pollonara, E and Wikelski, M},
  year = {2018},
  URL = {http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.dn1b937k},
  doi = {doi:10.5441/001/1.dn1b937k},
  publisher = {Movebank data repository}
}

RIS

TY  - DATA
ID  - doi:10.5441/001/1.dn1b937k
T1  - Data from: Only natural local odours allow homeward orientation in homing pigeons released at unfamiliar sites
AU  - Gagliardo, Anna
AU  - Pollonara, Enrica
AU  - Wikelski, Martin
Y1  - 2018/08/30
KW  - Columba livia
KW  - animal movement
KW  - animal navigation
KW  - animal tracking
KW  - Columba livia
KW  - GPS logger
KW  - homing pigeon
KW  - olfaction
KW  - Columba livia
PB  - Movebank data repository
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.5441/001/1.dn1b937k
DO  - doi:10.5441/001/1.dn1b937k
ER  -

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