Symposium number: 31

Title: MAGNETIC ORIENTATION AND MAGNETORECEPTION

Principal organizer: Roswitha Wiltschko
Zoolog. Institut, J.W.Goethe-Universität Frankfurt, Siesmayerstrasse 70, D-60054 Frankfurt am Main, Germany
email: wiltschko@zoology.uni frankfurt.de

Second organizer: Susanne Åkesson
Dept. of Animal Ecology, Lund University, Ecology Building, S-22362 Lund, Sweden

First keynote speaker: NN

Title of first keynote paper: NN

Second keynote speaker: Cordula Mora
Biology Department, University of North Carolina, Chappel Hill, N.C. 27599-3280, USA
Title of second keynote paper: Conditioning birds to magnetic stimuli

Contributed talks

Symposium description: Every year, millions of birds migrate long distances between their their wintering destinations and back, often returning to the very same sites as before. Many of them travel alone, guided first by a genetic program and later, in addition, by navigational abilities. Information from the Earth's magnetic field plays an important role in their orientation: the magnetic vector provides directional information for the migrants’ compass, and magnetic field intensity may be used as well for navigating between distant geographical sites. Today, we are just beginning to understand how birds perceive and process such geomagnetic information.
The aim of this symposium is to present recent scientific advances in the field of magnetic orientation, with special focus on how geomagnetic information is perceived and processed and how birds use geomagnetic information in the field. The symposium will start with a keynote address by Susanne Åkesson, who will summarize current behavioural evidence involving magnetic orientation and navigation. In the second keynote address, Cordula Mora will present the results of conditioning experiments demonstrating that birds perceive magnetic fields. We hope for contributed papers presenting new evidence on how birds acquire and use geomagnetic information for orientation and navigation.

back to list of symposia

Home | Scientific Programme | Officers | Venue | Accommodation | Tours | Past Congresses