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Review
. 2019 Sep 27;16(158):20190295.
doi: 10.1098/rsif.2019.0295. Epub 2019 Sep 4.

Magnetoreception in birds

Roswitha Wiltschko  1 , Wolfgang Wiltschko  1
Affiliations
Review

Magnetoreception in birds

Roswitha Wiltschko et al. J R Soc Interface. .

Abstract

Birds can use two kinds of information from the geomagnetic field for navigation: the direction of the field lines as a compass and probably magnetic intensity as a component of the navigational 'map'. The direction of the magnetic field appears to be sensed via radical pair processes in the eyes, with the crucial radical pairs formed by cryptochrome. It is transmitted by the optic nerve to the brain, where parts of the visual system seem to process the respective information. Magnetic intensity appears to be perceived by magnetite-based receptors in the beak region; the information is transmitted by the ophthalmic branch of the trigeminal nerve to the trigeminal ganglion and the trigeminal brainstem nuclei. Yet in spite of considerable progress in recent years, many details are still unclear, among them details of the radical pair processes and their transformation into a nervous signal, the precise location of the magnetite-based receptors and the centres in the brain where magnetic information is combined with other navigational information for the navigational processes.

Keywords: flavin adenine dinucleotide cycle; magnetic pulse; radical pair processes; radiofrequency fields; superparamagnetic magnetite; trigeminal nerve.

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Conflict of interest statement

We declare we have no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Magnetic compass orientation under green light (G) originating in radical pair processes (a–d), and a ‘fixed direction’ response in total darkness (D), probably originating in magnetite-based receptors in the beak region (e–h). The compass response is not sensitive to the polarity of the magnetic field, but to the axial course of the field lines; it is disrupted by radiofrequency fields, but not affected by anaesthesia up the upper beak. The ‘fixed direction’ response, in contrast, is a polar response; it is not affected by radiofrequency fields, but is disrupted by anaesthesia of the upper beak. The triangles at the periphery of the circle mark the mean directions of individual birds, the arrows indicate the grand mean vector and the inner circles give the 5% (dotted) and the 1% significance border of the Rayleigh test (see [2]).
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