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Certain seabirds drawn by the smell of food.


Some inconspicuous seabirds, such as prions and white-chinned petrels, behave like the bloodhounds of the Antarctic skies, a new study suggests.

These birds apparently use their sense of smell to track down food in the vast expanse of the South Atlantic Ocean South Atlantic Ocean

The southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, extending southward from the equator to Antarctica.
, Gabrielle A. Nevitt of the University of California, Davis The University of California, Davis, commonly known as UC Davis, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, and was established as the University Farm in 1905. , and her colleagues assert in the Aug. 24 Nature. The birds may locate zooplankton zooplankton: see marine biology.
zooplankton

Small floating or weakly swimming animals that drift with water currents and, with phytoplankton, make up the planktonic food supply on which almost all oceanic organisms ultimately depend (see
, tiny ocean animals that they feed on, by following the odor of dimethyl sulfide (DMS (1) (Document Management System) See document management.

(2) (Defense Messaging System) An X.500-compliant messaging system developed by the U.S. Dept. of Defense.
), which gets released when zooplankton graze on phytoplankton phytoplankton

Flora of freely floating, often minute organisms that drift with water currents. Like land vegetation, phytoplankton uses carbon dioxide, releases oxygen, and converts minerals to a form animals can use.
 (single-celled plants). The team estimates that these birds can detect normal ambient concentrations of DMS from up to 4 kilometers away.

Ornithologists This is a list of ornithologists who have articles, in alphabetical order by surname. See also . A-D
  • Humayun Abdulali (India)
  • Horace Alexander (UK, later USA)
  • Wilfred Backhouse Alexander (UK)
  • Salim Ali (India)
  • Joel Asaph Allen (USA)
 have only recently accepted the idea that birds can smell at all, and most researchers who study their foraging techniques ignore the significance of odors, contends Bernice M. Wenzel, of the University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. , School of Medicine.

DMS has also piqued the interest of climatologists, who are debating whether the compound could increase the concentration of cloud-forming particles in the atmosphere and alter temperatures (SN: 12/10/88, p. 375).

From their ship, Nevitt and her colleagues sprayed both a DMS-scented and an unscented aerosol plume into the air. They also poured out cod-liver oil cod-liver oil, yellowish oil obtained from the liver of the codfish. The oil is rich in vitamin A and vitamin D (calciferol). It was long used as a preventive and cure for rickets in Baltic and Scandinavian countries, where fish is a dietary staple.   and unscented and DMS-scented vegetable oil, which formed slicks on the water. Concentrations of DMS resembled what the birds might naturally encounter.

On average, twice as many birds came to the DMS-scented slicks as the unscented oil, and they found the scent as enticing as cod-liver oil. The birds zigzagged over the DMS slick, sat on it, tasted it, or just hovered over it. Although white-chinned petrels, prions, and two species of storm petrels found the DMS compelling, albatrosses and cape petrels showed no particular interest in it. The researchers obtained similar responses with the plumes.

All of the studied birds belong to the order Procellariiformes, and have unusually large areas in their brains responsible for smell.

The authors speculate that species showing no preference for DMS may have detected the odor but not considered it a food cue. Such birds may instead rely more on visual cues--finding food by watching where others head. Unlike the DMS-sensitive birds, the nonresponders are quite visible, forage mostly by day, and join large feeding groups, Nevitt observes.

The scientists are investigating whether blacked-brow albatrosses space themselves differently than do the DMS-sensitive birds in order to watch each other. "We're just wondering whether they hunt differently," Nevitt says.

Other studies have shown that birds will follow odors, such as ground-up squid and fish oil. But "it's rare to see such a pronounced response to such a pure aromatic [as DMS]," Nevitt says.

Indeed, the strength of this study stems from its use of a natural odorant odorant /odor·ant/ (o´der-int) any substance capable of stimulating the sense of smell.
odorant
, agrees Jerry A. Waldvogel of Clemson (S.C.) University.
COPYRIGHT 1995 Science Service, Inc.
No portion of this article can be reproduced without the express written permission from the copyright holder.
Copyright 1995, Gale Group. All rights reserved. Gale Group is a Thomson Corporation Company.

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Title Annotation:researchers discover prions, white-chinned petrels and other birds respond to the smell of dimethyl sulfide released by zooplankton
Author:Adler, Tina
Publication:Science News
Article Type:Brief Article
Date:Aug 26, 1995
Words:468
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