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Prof. Dr. Anton J.M. Loonen
Foundation
This is the sixth blog on the website of this foundation. In late August 2024, my review article on the possible role of the habenula in animal migration was published online in Physiology & Behavior. The final version appears in the November issue of this journal. I worked on this article for more than a year and I am quite satisfied with the result. I have also had several positive reactions. Much is known about the regulation of bird migration, but not how it is regulated in neuronal circuits of the forebrain. Possibly the ‘Dorsal Diencephalic Conduction System’ plays a dominant role. I actually think “connection” is a nicer name and use that in past publications, but “conduction” is more common. The article also contains a description, perhaps a bit tough for some readers, of the neuroanatomy of ‘older’ parts of the avian brain. What I write about the migration of birds and mammals themselves is probably of interest to more people. I have posted the pdf of this article as well as a Power Point presentation with the three figures. The article is ‘open access’ so the pdf and figures may be freely distributed and used. By the way, the first figure is not by Lizanne Hennessey, but created by Malou Warmerdam (www.omula.nl/).
The article also raises the widely held fear that climate change and a variety of civilizational-induced changes in nature will make animal migration more difficult and therefore extinct. It is hopeful that through special interactions with conspecifics and heterospecifics, adaptations in migratory behavior are possible, which can be influenced by humans as well. I would particularly like to point here to a study by Madsen et al., 2023 (doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.01.065 ). They found that over the course of about 10 years, increasing numbers of pink-footed geese (Anser brachyrhynchus) move their breeding grounds 1000 km east and 600 km further away by flying most along a different route with taiga bean geese (Anser f. fabalis). Social interactions with conspecifics and learned behavior play a major role in migration, which I believe opens up opportunities to adjust this behavior.
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