Smelling home in the wind: the study of olfactory homing in petrels. Gaia Dell/Ariccia, CEFE-CNRS, Montpellier, France

ABSTRACT: Animals use their sensory abilities to perceive and exploit their environment, and to interact with their conspecifics and other species. Although the sense of smell in birds has been largely neglected in the past, recent studies are bringing new evidence that olfaction plays a fundamental role in the ecology of at least some bird species, and especially petrels. However, the response to olfactory cues is not homogeneous between petrel species. For example, the olfactory recognition of the nest is performed only by nocturnal species while the diurnal ones use sight. These findings reflect species-specific divergences in lifestyles and ecology suggesting that odour responsiveness too is linked to specific lifestyles. In order to understand the adaptive and evolutive importance of the use of olfaction, we investigated and compared the homing behaviour of different petrel species. We performed different experiments, i.e. Y-maze choice tests in the colony and GPS tracking, to evaluate the homing behaviour and the use of smell in nest recognition in different petrel species in relation to their environments and lifestyles.

BIOGRAPHY:  Gaia Dell’Ariccia is an Italian post-doctorate at the Center of Evolutionary and Functional Ecology of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CEFE-CNRS) in Montpellier, France. She is a behavioral ecologist working on the use of olfaction in birds for a number of behaviours, ranging from foraging to homing, and to nests and partner recognition. 
After completing her masters studies at the University of Rome, Gaia conducted her PhD at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) on the influences of sociality and experience on avian navigation abilities using homing pigeon as a model species.  She is currently finalizing a post-doctorate in Montpellier in the team of Francesco Bonadonna, studying the olfactory ecology of various petrel species with a comparative approach between Mediterranean and Atlantic populations.