Join us online on May 19, 2022 at 7pm for Following the Scent of Avian Olfaction presented by Dr. Gabrielle Nevitt. The meeting will be held via ZOOM. You must register for the meeting, but there is no cost to register and you do not have to be a member of the Sacramento Audubon Society.
Dr. Nevitt with a Black-browed Albatross
When John James Audubon proclaimed that birds lacked a sense of smell, the study of avian olfaction was doomed to suffer ridicule by ornithology textbooks for years to come. In recent years, ornithologists have renewed their interest into the sense of smell in birds leading to a new appreciation of their chemical ecology. The tubenosed seabirds (petrels and albatrosses) of the order Procellariiformes have among the most impressive olfactory abilities of any animal on earth. Species within this order spend most of their lives flying over the world’s oceans, returning to land each year or every other year, to breed and rear a single offspring. They tend to partner for life and show strong nest-site fidelity between breeding seasons. Much of my research career has focused on elucidating how procellariform species use olfaction to perform behaviors ranging from foraging and navigation to mate choice and individual recognition. My presentation will touch on some of our recent findings and hopefully convince you that olfaction is a rich field of study, and that questions related to sensory ecology are both important and applicable to scientific inquiry into the biology and conservation.
Gabrielle Nevitt is a professor of Animal Behavior at UC Davis. She has worked extensively in the field of Sensory Ecology, which seeks to understand the different sensory worlds of animals. She has done pioneering research into the sense of smell in birds, focusing on the procellariform seabirds living in the Southern oceans around Antarctica. She has also worked with pacific salmon, and various marine organisms. Research from her lab has appeared in leading journals (Science, Nature and Proceedings of the National Academy of Scientists among others). She lives in Winters, California with her husband, Marcel Losekoot, and a variety of birds, including some very sweet emus.
You do not need a ZOOM account to join the meeting. Registration is required due to space limitations set by Zoom. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email with information on how to join the meeting. You will also receive email reminders about this event. Please email our Meeting Coordinator if you have any questions about the monthly speaker meetings.