Taxon:
Columba livia

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Scientific Name
Columba livia
Common Name
Common Pigeon
Rock Dove
Rock Pigeon
Taxa Group
Columbidae
Environment
Move Mode

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2020 - 20212
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Author: Wikelski, Martin × Author: Bingman, Verner P. ×

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    Data package
    Data from: GPS-profiling of retrograde navigational impairments associated with hippocampal lesion in homing pigeons
    (2021-06-15) Gagliardo, Anna; Colombo, Silvia; Pollonara, Enrica; Casini, Giovanni; Rossino, Maria Grazia; Wikelski, Martin; Bingman, Verner P.
    The avian hippocampal formation (HF) is homologous to the mammalian hippocampus and plays a central role in the control of spatial cognition. In homing pigeons, HF supports navigation by familiar landmarks and landscape features. However, what has remained relatively unexplored is the importance of HF for the retention of previously acquired spatial information. For example, to date, no systematic GPS-tracking studies on the retention of HF-dependent navigational memory in homing pigeons have been performed. Therefore, the current study was designed to compare the pre- and post-surgical navigational performance of sham-lesioned control and HF-lesioned pigeons tracked from three different sites located in different directions with respect to home. The pre- and post-surgical comparison of the pigeons’ flight paths near the release sites and before reaching the area surrounding the home loft (4 km radius from the loft) revealed that the control and HF-lesioned pigeons displayed similarly successful retention. By contrast, the HF-lesioned pigeons displayed dramatically and consistently impaired retention in navigating to their home loft during the terminal phase of the homing flight near home, i.e., where navigation is supported by memory for landmark and landscape features. The data demonstrate that HF lesions lead to a dramatic loss of pre-surgically acquired landmark and landscape navigational information while sparing those mechanisms associated with navigation from locations distant from home.
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    Data package
    Data from: Importance of the hippocampus for the learning of route fidelity in homing pigeons
    (2020-09-29) Wikelski, Martin; Gagliardo, Anna; Bingman, Verner P.
    The avian hippocampal formation (HF) is thought to regulate map-like memory representations of visual landmarks/landscape features and has more recently been suggested to be similarly important for the perceptual integration of landmarks/landscapes. Aspects of spatial memory and perception likely combine to support the now well-documented ability of homing pigeons to learn to retrace the same route when homing from familiar locations, leading to the prediction that damage to the HF would result in a diminished ability to repeatedly fly a similar route home. HF-lesioned homing pigeons were repeatedly released from three sites to assess the importance of the hippocampus as pigeons gradually learn a familiar route home guided by familiar landmark and landscape features. As expected, control pigeons displayed increasing fidelity to a familiar route home, and by inference, successful perceptual and memory processing of familiar landmarks/landscape features. By contrast, the impoverished route fidelity of the HF-lesioned pigeons indicated an impaired sensitivity to the same landmark/landscape features.