BEGIN seminar – Dr Dmitry Kishkinev
Date: 30 November 2021
Time: 15:00-16:00
Venue: The link for the event will be sent on the morning of the 301th to those that RSVP
Please RSVP at [email protected] until Mon 29th of June to receive the link.
All welcome!
The role of the Earth’s magnetic field for animal orientation and navigation
How can birds, sea turtles, migratory butterflies and many other animals find their way to intended destinations travelling 1000’s of miles sometimes across completely unfamiliar territories without access to satellite navigation technologies? What cues and senses do animals use for navigation? How can animals perceive changes of the Earth’s magnetic fields and can they use the Earth’s magnetic field (EMF) for navigation? How can human-made rapidly expanding electromagnetic noise produced by telecommunication infrastructure affect and disrupt animal’s behaviour? These questions are in the heart of my research. I am particularly interested in unravelling the mystery of the animal’s magnetic sense to understand how this sensory system works in detail and what role it plays for animal navigation. In this seminar, I will provide an overview of the recent advances in this field and discuss an accumulating body of evidence proving that a large range of species use EMF for direction-finding and at least some animals such as migratory birds and fish can use geomagnetic parameters for finding their location relative to migratory goals (i.e. for navigation).
Primer article in The Conversation based on our recent study:
https://theconversation.com/birds-use-massive-magnetic-maps-to-migrate-and-some-could-cover-the-whole-world-154992
Birds use massive magnetic maps to migrate – and some could cover the whole world – The Conversation
Regardless, if birds have learned that magnetic intensity increases as they go north, they should be able to detect their position on the north-south axis wherever they happen to be.
theconversation.com
Biography
Academic positions
2019-present: Lecturer in Animal Behaviour and Behavioural Neuroscience, Keele University.
2017-2019: Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship, Bangor University, UK.
2014-2017: Postdoctoral Research Assistant, in Queen’s University Belfast (2014-2016) then Bangor University (216-2017), UK.
2012-2014: Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, NSERC), University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada.
2011-2012: Postdoctoral Researcher, University of Oldenburg, Germany.
2006-2011: PhD (Biology), University of Oldenburg, Germany.
2003-2005: MSci in Biology, St Petersburg State University, Russia.
