Symposium number: 47

Title: HOW DO BIRDS SENSE THE EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD? MAGNETORECEPTION MECHANISMS IN BIRDS

Principal organizer: Henrik Mouritsen
University of Oldenburg, AG Animal Navigation, IBU, D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany
email: henrik.mouritsen@uni-oldenburg.de

Second organizer: Thorsten Ritz
University of California, Irvine, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-4575, USA

First keynote speaker: Thorsten Ritz
University of California, Irvine, Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, 4129 Frederick Reines Hall, Irvine, CA 92697-4575, USA
Title of first keynote paper: Navigation with a map and a magnetic compass: What sailors can learn from birds

Second keynote speaker: Henrik Mouritsen
University of Oldenburg, AG Animal Navigation, IBU, D-26111 Oldenburg, Germany
Title of second keynote paper: The magnetic senses of birds: Recent molecular and physiological evidence

Contributed talks

Symposium description: The long-distance navigational abilities of birds have fascinated ornithologists for centuries and challenged scientists for decades. Even though it has been shown behaviourally that the Earth's magnetic field is one of the key cues used by birds to find their way, we still do not know how birds sense, perceive and process magnetic information. Recently, however, the search for the avian magnetoreceptors and the cognitive processes integrating magnetic information into the avian orientation system has begun gathering momentum.
The aim of this symposium is to review the considerable progress that has been made in this field since the 23rd International Ornithological Congress in 2002. The symposium will open with a keynote address presenting the theoretical background for visual perception of the magnetic field. And a later keynote address will summarize, in a behavioural context, the physiological and molecular evidence for and against vision-mediated magnetic sensing in birds. Contributed papers will then be chosen from those that shed new light on the enigmatic mechanisms which allow birds to derive information from the geomagnetic field.

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