PHOTORESPONSES OF THE WOODPIGEON COLUMBA PALUMBUS IN RELATION TO THE BREEDING SEASON

• 1 The gametogenetic response following photo-stimulation was tested in Woodpigeons under controlled laboratory and aviary conditions. Subjects were wild-caught adult or first-winter birds or were hand-reared from wild-taken nestlings. The natural seasonal gonad cycle is described and experiments were related to this cycle.
• 2 Gonad recrudescence could be initiated in adults with regressed organs by exposure to summer photoperiods, while the normal vernal recrudescence could be prevented if birds were artificially kept on short (winter) daylengths. Thus Woodpigeons could be stimulated towards reproductive condition at seasons when the gonads of wild-living birds remained inactive, viz. late September to mid-February.
• 3 Juvenile males were unresponsive to extra photo-stimulation until they were about six months old. This meant that some spermatogonial division could be procured in a few individuals in late February, but juveniles were not very noticeably affected by an extended photoperiod until mid-late March. This is the time when juveniles first begin gametogenetic development in the wild, though spermatogenesis normally accelerates in April after which time the rate of gonad development is constant. First-winter females were judged to resemble males in their photoperiodic responses but the sample examined was small.
• 4 The results confirm that the natural gonad cycle in the Woodpigeon is controlled (via gonadotrophic hormones) by seasonal changes in daylength. More important is the finding that the species appears to possess no post-nuptial refractory period. Thus, at the end of the breeding season in September birds kept on summer daylengths were maintained in full reproductive condition until December. The testes of controls placed on winter daylengths regressed within one month, but they were immediately responsive to a summer daylength which stimulated spermatogenesis within a month.
• 5 The discussion argues that the avian refractory period is not a necessary period for gonad rehabihtation and reorganization and that it has not evolved as a fixed period serving to time the breeding season; views which until now have been current. Instead, it functions only as a safety mechanism, preventing unseasonal reproduction in those species for which natural selection favours seasonal breeding. In such species the evolution of sensitivity to a particular daylength could result in breeding taking place at the wrong time, for example spring responding species might also respond in the autumn. Because natural selection permits Woodpigeons to remain in breeding condition from March until September, without disadvantage, a direct response to natural daylength can regulate the cycle, and there is no need for a period of pituitary refractoriness. It is not known if some pigeons have lost the refractory period or whether they never possessed one.