SPATIOTEMPORAL PROGRAMS AND GENETICS OF ORIENTATION

A number of migratory bird species have endogenous annual rhythms that regulate the entire annual cycle including the migratory portion. Moreover, captive migrants display inherited migratory activity; this could theoretically also be used by free-living migrants as a time-program for migration. Finally, this heritable migratory activity is oriented in a seasonally appropriate direction even in naive birds. These, characteristics should enable inexperienced migrants isolated from contact with experienced conspecifics to utilize a heritable vector-navigation program to migrate from the breeding grounds to the winter quarters. That is, migrants should reach goal areas they have never experienced by migrating in programmed directions, for as long a period as the genetically fixed time-program for migratory activity induces them to do so. The time-course of migration as established by trapping stations, theoretical influences of environmental variables on migratory programs, and also compensatory behavior and migratory backup measures, are discussed. The present evidence supports the view that a large number of migrants are essentially brought to their wintering areas by vector-navigation systems. © 1990 Birkhäuser Verlag.