Avian orientation: multi-cue integration and calibration of compass systems

Migratory birds are known to use a number of different orientation cues to determine and maintain the direction of their movements. They are able to use at least three different sources of compass information, including solar, stellar and geomagnetic cues. However, little is known about how these cues are calibrated into uniform reference direction information, while the hierarchy of these cues remains controversial. In recent studies, researchers suggest that avian migrants calibrate their geomagnetic compass on sunset cues, whereas others fail to find such patterns and insist on the prevalence of the magnetic compass. We carefully reviewed the existing literature and suggest that the conflicting results reported by different authors are due to genuine variation among species and propose hypotheses to explain this variation.