英国牛津大学动物学系Tim Guilford、Joe Wynn研究小组近日取得一项新成果。经过不懈努力，他们探明了磁性倾角是欧洲芦苇莺禽迁徙后到达繁殖地的信号。2022年1月28日，国际学术期刊《科学》发表了这一成果。

利用近一个世纪以来芦苇莺(Acrocephalus scirpaceus) 的振铃恢复，研究人员探究了地球磁场波动是否能预测鸟类返回地点的变化。振铃恢复表明磁倾角是在迁徙前学习的，随后在重新定位出生地或繁殖地时用作单坐标“停止标志”。然而，许多位置具有相同的倾角。具有不同迁徙方向种群的数据表明，鸟类通过在返回向量上遇到的第一个正确倾向停下来解决这种模糊性。

据了解，众所周知鸟类可以非常精确地返回它们的繁殖地，但它们如何知道何时何地停止迁徙仍然是一个谜。

附：英文原文

Title: Magnetic stop signs signal a European songbird’s arrival at the breeding site after migration

Author: Joe Wynn, Oliver Padget, Henrik Mouritsen, Joe Morford, Paris Jaggers, Tim Guilford

Issue&Volume: 2022-01-28

Abstract: Although it is known that birds can return to their breeding grounds with exceptional precision, it has remained a mystery how they know when and where to stop migrating. Using nearly a century’s worth of Eurasian reed warbler (Acrocephalus scirpaceus) ringing recoveries, we investigated whether fluctuations in Earth’s magnetic field predict variation in the sites to which birds return. Ringing recoveries suggest that magnetic inclination is learned before departure and is subsequently used as a uni-coordinate “stop sign” when relocating the natal or breeding site. However, many locations have the same inclination angle. Data from populations with different migratory directions indicate that birds solve this ambiguity by stopping at the first place where the right inclination is encountered on an inherited return vector.

DOI: abj4210

Source: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj4210