UCF’s Robert Fitak is studying how magnetic bacteria that live in some animals might guide those animals during long-distance migrations. “These magnetic bacteria seem to be a regular component of many species microbiomes,” says Fitak. “Hopefully our future work will show whether they are just incidentally gathered from the environment, a functional component of magnetic sensing for a host animal, or for some other unknown reason.”
The team compiled a huge database of animal DNA sequences showing the presence of various types of magnetic bacteria to help understand the environmental and ecological roles of such bacteria and identify potential host animals. They are now testing their hypotheses in sea turtles because they are “kind of a model of animal navigation.”
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