Even Birds Get Jet Lagged, Study Shows
Researchers found the seabirds’ internal clocks drift after long ocean flights, producing only small course errors on the way home.
- On October 29, researchers reported that Manx shearwaters experience jet-lag-like navigation errors during long Atlantic flights. Rapid east-west travel causes the birds' internal clocks to mismatch local solar time, leading them to veer off course.
- Patrick Lewin, a behavioral ecologist at Oxford University, explained that birds rely on an internal clock to use the sun as a compass. When flying rapidly across time zones, this clock lags behind, causing birds to misjudge the sun's position.
- Researchers analyzed 20 years of GPS data from 1,045 Manx shearwaters, covering 3,688 foraging trips. The team found birds veered by as much as 15 degrees, showing "systematic deviations" consistent with predicted time-shift effects on their sun compass.
- Co-Author Tim Guilford noted that these errors are small, with a seven-degree deviation adding only about three miles to a 600-mile journey. Birds continuously correct their route, preventing significant impacts on reaching their colony.
- Western University biologist Alice Boyle called the findings "so cool" for revealing navigation decisions in action. The team suggests these insights could help scientists understand how other animals manage long-distance travel without constant position correction.
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Writing Science, 29 Oct (EFE).- Seabirds also suffer a time lag (jet lag) on their long migratory journeys, which sometimes leads them to make navigational errors and to deviate from their course as they fly guided by the Sun. This has been verified by a team of researchers coordinated by scientists from the [...] La entrada Birds also suffer ‘jet lag’ on their long migratory journeys was first published in HolaNews.
Long-distance flights can throw seabirds' internal clocks out of sync, causing navigation errors
A study led by Oxford University has found that seabirds flying long distances across the Atlantic can experience a mismatch between their internal body clocks and local time (the same process that leads to jet lag in humans), causing them to make predictable errors when navigating by the sun. The results have been published in the journal Science.
(Seoul = Yonhap News) Reporter Lee Joo-young = When seabirds travel long distances quickly, their internal clock and local solar time...
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