Why scientists want your photos of wildlife eating lunch

A citizen-science platform called Who Eats Whom, built on the iNaturalist network, has compiled 17,000 documented predator-prey interactions across 5,700 species in more than 100 countries by relying on ordinary people's geotagged photos. Ecologist Bradley Allf, who developed it at North Carolina State and now works at Colorado State, says the crowdsourcing generates data no lone scientist chasing snakes for scat samples could match.

The database includes an interactive food web showing chains most people never consider, like red-tailed hawks preying on small mammals whose own diets loop back into the plants those mammals eat. Researchers say the tool could help track how warming climates reshuffle ecosystems, including where invasive species are quietly taking over local menus.

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