Development of the Visual System in a Burrow-Nesting Seabird: Leach's Storm Petrel
Little is known about the development of vision in wild birds. It is unknown, for example, whether the ability to see can be predicted by the level of prenatal growth or whether the eyes are open at hatching in a particular species. In this study, we investigated the growth of eyes, the formation of...
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crskarger:10.1159/000484080 2024-06-23T07:55:55+00:00 Development of the Visual System in a Burrow-Nesting Seabird: Leach's Storm Petrel Mitkus, Mindaugas Nevitt, Gabrielle A. Kelber, Almut 2017 http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000484080 https://karger.com/bbe/article-pdf/91/1/4/3896352/000484080.pdf en eng S. Karger AG https://karger.com/pages/terms-and-conditions https://karger.com/pages/terms-and-conditions Brain, Behavior and Evolution volume 91, issue 1, page 4-16 ISSN 0006-8977 1421-9743 journal-article 2017 crskarger https://doi.org/10.1159/000484080 2024-06-12T04:07:30Z Little is known about the development of vision in wild birds. It is unknown, for example, whether the ability to see can be predicted by the level of prenatal growth or whether the eyes are open at hatching in a particular species. In this study, we investigated the growth of eyes, the formation of retinal ganglion cell topography, and the appearance of simple, visually guided behaviours in chicks of a small procellariiform seabird, Leach's storm petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa). This semi-precocial species, which has a well-developed sense of smell, nests in underground burrows where adults provision chicks for 6-8 weeks in the dark before fledging. Retinal ganglion cell topographic maps revealed that fine-tuning of cell distribution does not happen early in development, but rather that the ganglion cell layer continues to mature throughout provisioning and probably even after fledging. While the olfactory bulbs reached adult size around 7 weeks after hatching, the eyes and telencephalon continued to grow. Optokinetic head response and artificial burrow finding experiments indicated that chicks in the 2nd week after hatching lack even the most basic visually guided behaviours and are probably blind. Thus, vision in Leach's storm petrel chicks starts to function sometime around the 3rd week after hatching, well after the eyes have opened and the olfactory system is functional. Article in Journal/Newspaper Oceanodroma leucorhoa Karger Burrows ENVELOPE(163.650,163.650,-74.300,-74.300) Brain, Behavior and Evolution 91 1 4 16 |
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English |
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Little is known about the development of vision in wild birds. It is unknown, for example, whether the ability to see can be predicted by the level of prenatal growth or whether the eyes are open at hatching in a particular species. In this study, we investigated the growth of eyes, the formation of retinal ganglion cell topography, and the appearance of simple, visually guided behaviours in chicks of a small procellariiform seabird, Leach's storm petrel (Oceanodroma leucorhoa). This semi-precocial species, which has a well-developed sense of smell, nests in underground burrows where adults provision chicks for 6-8 weeks in the dark before fledging. Retinal ganglion cell topographic maps revealed that fine-tuning of cell distribution does not happen early in development, but rather that the ganglion cell layer continues to mature throughout provisioning and probably even after fledging. While the olfactory bulbs reached adult size around 7 weeks after hatching, the eyes and telencephalon continued to grow. Optokinetic head response and artificial burrow finding experiments indicated that chicks in the 2nd week after hatching lack even the most basic visually guided behaviours and are probably blind. Thus, vision in Leach's storm petrel chicks starts to function sometime around the 3rd week after hatching, well after the eyes have opened and the olfactory system is functional. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Mitkus, Mindaugas Nevitt, Gabrielle A. Kelber, Almut |
spellingShingle |
Mitkus, Mindaugas Nevitt, Gabrielle A. Kelber, Almut Development of the Visual System in a Burrow-Nesting Seabird: Leach's Storm Petrel |
author_facet |
Mitkus, Mindaugas Nevitt, Gabrielle A. Kelber, Almut |
author_sort |
Mitkus, Mindaugas |
title |
Development of the Visual System in a Burrow-Nesting Seabird: Leach's Storm Petrel |
title_short |
Development of the Visual System in a Burrow-Nesting Seabird: Leach's Storm Petrel |
title_full |
Development of the Visual System in a Burrow-Nesting Seabird: Leach's Storm Petrel |
title_fullStr |
Development of the Visual System in a Burrow-Nesting Seabird: Leach's Storm Petrel |
title_full_unstemmed |
Development of the Visual System in a Burrow-Nesting Seabird: Leach's Storm Petrel |
title_sort |
development of the visual system in a burrow-nesting seabird: leach's storm petrel |
publisher |
S. Karger AG |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
http://dx.doi.org/10.1159/000484080 https://karger.com/bbe/article-pdf/91/1/4/3896352/000484080.pdf |
long_lat |
ENVELOPE(163.650,163.650,-74.300,-74.300) |
geographic |
Burrows |
geographic_facet |
Burrows |
genre |
Oceanodroma leucorhoa |
genre_facet |
Oceanodroma leucorhoa |
op_source |
Brain, Behavior and Evolution volume 91, issue 1, page 4-16 ISSN 0006-8977 1421-9743 |
op_rights |
https://karger.com/pages/terms-and-conditions https://karger.com/pages/terms-and-conditions |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.1159/000484080 |
container_title |
Brain, Behavior and Evolution |
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91 |
container_issue |
1 |
container_start_page |
4 |
op_container_end_page |
16 |
_version_ |
1802648729895829504 |