Publication Date
5-4-2016
Document Type
Article
Organizational Units
College of Natural Science and Mathematics, Biological Sciences
Keywords
Avian navigation, Infrasound, Microbaroms, Tornadoes, Hurricanes
Abstract
Repeated releases of experienced homing pigeons from single sites were conducted between 1972 and 1974 near Cornell University in upstate New York and between 1982 and 1983 near the University of Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania, USA. No annual variation in homing performance was observed at these sites in eastern North America, in contrast to results from a number of similar experiments in Europe. Assuming pigeons home using low-frequency infrasonic signals (~0.1–0.3 Hz), as has been previously proposed, the annual and geographic variability in homing performance within the northern hemisphere might be explained, to a first order, by seasonal changes in low-frequency atmospheric background noise levels related to storm activity in the North Atlantic Ocean, and by acoustic waveguides formed between the surface and seasonally reversing stratospheric winds. In addition, increased dispersion among departure bearings of test birds on some North American release days was possibly caused by infrasonic noise from severe weather events during tornado and Atlantic hurricane seasons.
Copyright Date
5-4-2016
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Rights Holder
Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg (outside the USA); public domain inside the USA
Provenance
Received from author
Language
English (eng)
Extent
12 pgs
File Size
1061 KB
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg (outside the USA). This article is a U.S. Government work and is in the public domain in the USA. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.
Publication Title
Journal of Comparative Physiology A
Volume
202
Issue
6
First Page
413
Last Page
424
ISSN
1432-1351
Recommended Citation
Hagstrum, J. T., McIsaac, H. P., & Drob, D. P. (2016). Seasonal changes in atmospheric noise levels and the annual variation in pigeon homing performance. Journal of Comparative Physiology A, 202(6), 413–424. DOI: 10.1007/s00359-016-1087-y