MagGeo: Opening A New World Of Collaborative Wildlife Research

摘要

Migratory animals make long journeys that cross oceans and continents, navigating with exceptional skill. Along with stars, the Sun, smell and visual landmarks, magnetic sensitivity is used by animals to establish direction and perhaps location. Geomagnetic navigation by many species of animals (e.g. birds, turtles, sea mammals, fish) is now well established with numerous experiments showing that the Earth's magnetic field is one of a number of cues that can be used to aid travel over distance (Mouritsen, 2018). Some birds are amazingly sensitive to the geomagnetic field, with the ability to detect changes on the order of 20 nanoteslas (nT) (Semm et al, 1990), around 4 parts in 10,000 of the global average intensity of 50,000 nT However, despite decades of research, scientists still do not fully understand how animals use the information in the geomagnetic field to navigate.