Wandering Albatross Forages Using Sense of Smell

GPS Tracking Indicates Scent Markers Important to Open Ocean Feeding

Sep 24, 2009

Using Global Positioning Systems, scientists have shown that the wandering albatross tracks dimethyl sulfide odors from phytoplankton, copepod and krill when foraging.

It was long thought that sense of smell is poorly developed in birds. Recent advances in GPS data loggers have, however, allowed researchers to more closely examine the feeding behavior of wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) and show that nearly half of their feeding activity involves picking up scent from the water. This increases their chances of finding more food within a plankton swarm as it moves with ocean currents.

Role of Dimethyl Sulfide in Wandering Albatross Foraging

As the Wandering Albatross travels the open seas, it uses visual clues to find food, often focusing on areas where other marine birds or animals are concentrated. But after Dr Gabrielle Nevitt was able to show that a group of seabirds, the procellariiformes or ‘tube-noses’, were attracted to areas of crushed krill.

This lead to the discovery that some tube-noses, including the wandering albatross, were attracted to the dimethyl sulfide released as cephalopods, krill and other marine life break down phytoplankton. The role of dimethyl sulfide in the marine environment is being closely looked at for its role in climate conditions.

Wandering Albatross Tracking Studies Using Global Positioning Systems

In collaboration with Henri Weimerskrich, Nevitt was also able to determine how much the wandering albatross depends on that sense of smell when foraging. In this study the wandering albatross were found flying crosswind. Traveling in this manner, the birds were able to take advantage of a very energy efficient form of flight.

The crosswind was also assumed to increase their chances of detecting food by sense of smell, as any dimethyl sulfide release from krill and copepods feeding on phytoplankton would be more likely to reach them as they traveled into the wind. How much of the foraging strategy of the wandering albatross is based on vision and how much on smell is not yet clear.

Flying Into the Wind Increases Chance of Detecting Dimethyl Sulfide From Krill and Plankton

The other piece of interesting information that came from the GPS study was that wandering albatross also turned upwind during foraging flights. Upwind travel is very costly in terms of energy expended, so there would need to be an advantage to traveling in this direction. It supports the hypothesis of foraging by sense of smell, as turning into the wind would increase the chance of detecting the dimethyl sulfide.

There is still a great deal to learn about the visual and olfactory physiology of the wandering albatross to further refine the understanding of the species foraging behavior but this initial information adds to knowledge needed to help slow the decline of this open ocean species.

The copyright of the article Wandering Albatross Forages Using Sense of Smell in Wildlife Conservation is owned by Dawn M. Smith. Permission to republish Wandering Albatross Forages Using Sense of Smell in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.