Impressive Merton Contribution to Science Journal Paper on Seabird Behaviour

A new study 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 which leads to jet lag in humans), causing them to make predictable errors when navigating by the sun. 

An astounding eleven of the twenty-three authors are current students or alumni of the College. The paper was led by Merton alumnus Dr Patrick Lewin, with Merton Fellow Professor Tim Guilford contributing as Senior Author.

Researchers from Oxford Biology studied 20 years of GPS tracking data from over 1,000 Manx shearwaters to investigate how rapid east-west travel affects navigation. Many birds use the sun as a compass, but this requires an accurate internal clock to interpret the sun's position correctly.

The study found that when shearwaters flew rapidly eastwards, their internal clocks became temporarily out of sync with local solar time, causing predictable navigational errors. The birds tended to drift slightly clockwise from their intended route, matching what would be expected if they were relying on a sun compass calibrated to an earlier time zone.

These errors persisted even when birds could see coastlines and use landmarks, suggesting they continued to depend heavily on the sun for navigation. However, the mistakes were generally small and were corrected continuously during flight, adding only minor extra distance to their journey.

The findings provide rare evidence that natural "jet lag" can influence animal navigation in the wild. The research also suggests that similar time-shift effects could have broader consequences for migrating animals and may affect behaviour, health, and survival in ways comparable to jet lag in humans.

To read more about this research, published in Science, visit: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.adz2542