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Hacking salmon’s mental compass to save endangered fish

Posted by: Maven on December 3, 2008 at 6:28 am

From Wired Science:

One of the animal kingdom’s enduring mysteries — the sea-spanning return of salmon to their home stream — may be explained by in-brain GPS systems calibrated to Earth’s magnetic field.

Scientists hope to program the navigation systems of captive salmon to help the species survive in the wild. If they can figure out how to mimic the magnetic signature of a stream, they can train fish to go there when released.

As hatchlings, says University of North Carolina biologist Ken Lohmann, the fish are biologically imprinted with local geomagnetic coordinates. Years later, they sense subtle variations in the intensity and angle of Earthly magnetism that guide them home from thousands of miles away.

“What we’ve done is to present a new theory in terms of how these animals find their way back home,” said Lohmann. “If it turns out to be true, it could be a powerful conservation tool for establishing them in places where they once lived and are now extinct.”

Lohmann’s theory, published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has not been proven, but scientists call it a compelling piece of an incomplete migratory puzzle. Though salmon follow chemical scents from river mouths to birth streams, how they first find the rivers remains unknown.

Read more from Wired Science by clicking here.

December 3, 2008 · Filed Under Wildlife & Endangered Species

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