How Evolution Has Optimized the Magnetic Sensor in Birds

taylorvich writes:

https://phys.org/news/2024-04-evolution-optimized-magnetic-sensor-birds.html

Migratory birds are able to navigate and orientate with astonishing accuracy using various mechanisms, including a magnetic compass. A team led by biologists Dr. Corinna Langebrake and Prof. Dr. Miriam Liedvogel from the University of Oldenburg and the Institute of Avian Research "Vogelwarte Helgoland" in Wilhelmshaven has now compared the genomes of several hundred bird species and found further evidence that a specific protein in the birds' eyes is the magnetoreceptor which underlies this process.

The researchers found that there have been significant evolutionary changes in the gene that encodes the protein cryptochrome 4 and that certain groups of birds have lost it entirely.

These findings are indicative of adaptation to varying environmental conditions and support the theory that cryptochrome 4 functions as a sensor protein.

The study was prompted by research at the Universities of Oldenburg and Oxford (UK), which has shown that magnetoreception is based on a complex quantum mechanical process that takes place in certain cells in the retinas of migratory birds.

In a paper published in the journal Nature in 2021, the German-British team presented findings according to which it was highly likely that cryptochrome 4 was the magnetoreceptor they had been looking for: first, they were able to prove that the protein is present in the birds' retina, and second, both experiments with bacterially produced proteins and model calculations showed that cryptochrome 4 exhibits the suspected quantum effect in response to magnetic fields.

Interestingly, the research also demonstrated that these proteins are significantly more sensitive to magnetic fields in robins, which are migratory birds, than in chickens and pigeons, which are resident species.

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