More than a half century ago, researchers recognized that the sensory basis of navigation could be a powerful way to predict the movements and distribution of fishes. Recent work supports these earlier theories. Variation in the movements of homing salmon are accurately predicted by a biphasic strategy of fish using the geomagnetic field for oceanic navigation followed by use of environmental and conspecific olfactory cues upon entry into freshwater. Navigational precision at both scales appears to be enhanced by collective behavior among fish. Likewise, the foraging movements of fish have been shown to be a function of a hierarchy of interacting sensory cues. At a broad-scale, oceanic foraging movements in some fishes are facilitated by map information associated with the geomagnetic field (enabling fish to target regions that, on average, maximize growth potential). Olfactory information indirectly associated with prey species permits localization of restricted areas for foraging, and as different cues become available with increasing vicinity of their prey, fishes switch their focus from one sensory signal to another to orient toward and consume specific prey items. The examples of fish orientation discussed during the symposium have analogs in other taxa, suggesting the potential for developing a common framework for synthesizing how animals use multiple sensory cues to orient and the production of mechanistic and predictive models of animal movement. — Michelle Scanlan, Oregon State University, [email protected] Read the symposium abstracts here.