Navigation and Migration Flashcards
What is navigation defined as?
Piloting a course from one location to another
What dance do bees do when food is less than 50m away?
Round dance
What dance do bees do when food is more than 50m away?
Figure of eight/waggle dance
What does the angle and the duration of the waggle dance show?
The angle from the vertical shows the direction of the food source - matches the angle the food source is from the sun
The duration of the dance is the distance of the food source from the hive
How do Desert Ants measure distance?
By the amount of walking it has done and the direction of the sun’s position (works this out by polarised light patterns)
How to pigeons find their way home?
Follow linear features e.g. roads, rivers etc
What happens if a pigeon doesn’t know an area?
They fly aimlessly around
Where is the mental map located?
The hippocampus
Is there correlation between left or right hippocampal activity and navigational accuracy?
Right hippocampal activity
What part of the hippocampus is larger in taxi drivers?
Posterior hippocampus
What is migration?
The seasonal movement of animals between the location where they breed and the location where they live during the non-breeding period
What was the difference in Blackcap migration pre and post 1950s? Why was there a change?
Pre 1950s, Blackcaps migrated to Africa so had none in winter
Post 1950s Blackcaps stopped migrated so had Blackcaps in winter
Britain became milder and people left food out for birds
What experiment was carried out to test if there are genetic components that underlie the changes in migration in Blackcaps?
Capture wild British Blackcaps in winter
Transport to a laboratory in Germany
Kept indoors in an aviary
Bred birds in spring in an outdoor aviary
Measured the migratory behaviour in offspring
What were the findings in the Blackcap experiment?
Offspring also tried to migrate like parents
So must be due to genetic similarities/components
How many times has migration behaviour arisen in the Catharus Thrushes?
3 times
