Is that dinner I can smell? - Olfaction plays major role in albatross foraging

High-resolution global positioning system (GPS) devices provide a unique tool to study the foraging techniques of seabirds. A new study by Gabrielle Nevitt (University of California at Davis) and colleagues (Nevitt et al. 2008) suggests that Wandering Albatrosses (Diomedea exulans) use smell to locate food at least half of the time. GPS data was combined with measurements of stomach temperature to model how albatrosses find food. Odors emanating from prey will tend to disperse laterally and downwind of the odor source and acquire an irregular and patchy concentration distribution due to turbulent transport. For a seabird foraging over the ocean, the models suggests that an olfactory search would be facilitated by crosswind flight to optimize the probability of encountering a plume emanating from a prey item, followed by upwind, zigzag flight to localize the prey. Such flight patterns were observed in nearly half of the feeding events studies. Birds approaching prey by sight would be expected to fly directly to a prey item, irrespective of wind direction.

Nevitt GA, Losekoot M, Weimerskirch H. (2008) Evidence for olfactory search in wandering albatross, Diomedea exulans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A., 105(12):4576-81.

Weimerskirch H, Pinaud D, Pawlowski F, Bost CA.(2007) Does prey capture induce area-restricted search? A fine-scale study using GPS in a marine predator, the wandering albatross. Am Nat.170(5):734-43.