By Dr. habil. Gábor Horváth, Prof. Dr. Dezső Varjú (auth.)

While the human eye can essentially cope purely with points of sunshine, brightness and color, for lots of animals polarization is one other resource of visible info.

This attention-grabbing phenomenon of polarization sensitivity is comprehensively taken care of through Horvath and Varju. beginning with a brief advent into imaging polarimetry - an effective method for measuring mild polarization - a number of polarization styles taking place in nature are offered. between them are the polarizational features of water surfaces, mirages and the underwater mild box in addition to the celestial polarization styles plagued by the illumination stipulations of dawn, sundown, transparent or cloudy skies, moonshine and overall sun eclipses.

The significant a part of the e-book is devoted to the query: How can animals understand and use the average and synthetic polarization styles? Following a close compendium of the physiological foundation of polarization sensitivity, numerous case experiences of animal behaviour decided or prompted via polarization are awarded. it truly is proven how arial, terrestrial and aquatic animals use the celestial and underwater polarization for orientation, e. g. how polarized mild serves honeybees or ants as a compass. extra, it truly is defined how man-made gadgets affecting the ordinary optical setting might disorientate animals. for example, as within the case the place oil or glass surfaces, asphalt roads, or plastic sheets utilized in agriculture will be extra beautiful for water-seeking polarotactic bugs than the water floor, and the place mayflies lay their eggs on dry asphalt roads or cars.

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E. potentially higher values than in the background skylight (Können 1985, pp 42-43). If the clouds are not thin and/or parts of them are not directly illuminated by the sun, their polarizational characteristies differ from those discussed above. Under a heavily overcast sky, when the cloud layer is several km thick, the illumination comes more or less from all 6 Polarization Patterns of Cloudy Skies and Animal Orientation 37 directions and, hence, p of cloudlight is strongly reduced (Können 1985, pp 42-43).

East is on the left of the cornpass rose, because we are looking up through the celestial dome rather than down onto a map. B, C The change of the zenith angle of the Arago and Babinet points for the red, green and blue spectral ranges as a function of the solar zenith angle (J. The nurnbers around the graphs indicate the hours (local summer time, UTC+3) of recording. In the first and second half of the course the neighbouring points of the graphs are connected with solid and dashed straight fines, respectively.

Its disadvantage is that at least three polarimeters have to be handled simultaneously, which is not a simple task. Furthermore, such a group of polarimeters is heavy, voluminous, its setting up, dismounting and transferring is difficult and time-consuming. These disadvantages frequently make the use of simultaneous polarimetry in the field impossible. The disadvantage of sequential polarimetry is that temporally changing radiation fields cannot be measured with it. Its advantage is that only one polarimeter has to be handled, the setting up, dismounting and transferring of which is much easier and quicker.

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