Interactions between the visual and the magnetoreception system: Different effects of bichromatic light regimes on the directional behavior of migratory birds

When magnetic compass orientation of migratory robins was tested, the birds proved well oriented under low intensity monochromatic light of shorter wavelengths up to 565 nm green; from 583 nm yellow onward, they were disoriented. In the present study, we tested robins under bichromatic lights composed (1) of 424 nm blue and 565 nm green and (2) of 565 nm green and 583 nm yellow at two intensities. Under dim blue-green light with a total quantal flux of ca. 8 x 10(15) quanta/s m(2), the birds were well oriented in their migratory direction by their inclination compass; under blue-green light of twice this intensity, their orientation became axial. In both cases, the magnetic directional information was mediated by the radical pair processes in the eye. When green and yellow light were combined, however, the nature of the behavior changed. Under green-yellow light of the higher intensity, the birds showed a 'fixed direction' response that was polar, no longer controlled by the normal inclination compass; under dim green-yellow light, the response became axial. Under these two light conditions, the respective directional information was mediated by the magnetite-based receptors in the skin of the upper beak. Apparently, yellow light leads to a change from one magnetoreception system to the other. How this change is effected is still unknown; it appears to reflect complex interactions between the visual and the two magnetoreception systems. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.