Virtual migration in tethered flying monarch butterflies reveals their orientation mechanisms
AUTOR(ES)
Mouritsen, Henrik
FONTE
The National Academy of Sciences
RESUMO
A newly developed flight simulator allows monarch butterflies to fly actively for up to several hours in any horizontal direction while their fall migratory flight direction can be continuously recorded. From these data, long segments of virtual flight paths of tethered, flying, migratory monarch butterflies were reconstructed, and by advancing or retarding the butterflies' circadian clocks, we have shown that they possess a time-compensated sun compass. Control monarchs on local time fly approximately southwest, those 6-h time-advanced fly southeast, and 6-h time-delayed butterflies fly in northwesterly directions. Moreover, butterflies flown in the same apparatus under simulated overcast in natural magnetic fields were randomly oriented and did not change direction when magnetic fields were rotated. Therefore, these experiments do not provide any evidence that monarch butterflies use a magnetic compass during migration.
ACESSO AO ARTIGO
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=126641Documentos Relacionados
- Monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus L.) use a magnetic compass for navigation
- Natal origins of migratory monarch butterflies at wintering colonies in Mexico: New isotopic evidence
- Modeling current and future potential wintering distributions of eastern North American monarch butterflies
- Pseudomonas aeruginosa Reveals High Intrinsic Resistance to Penem Antibiotics: Penem Resistance Mechanisms and Their Interplay
- Perpendicular orientation and directional migration of amphibian neural crest cells in dc electrical fields.