AI Insight
Researchers have created "Who Eats Whom," a comprehensive global food web database derived from citizen science photographs uploaded to iNaturalist. The database systematically extracts and organizes feeding relationships between species from thousands of user-submitted images, making previously scattered interaction data searchable and visualizable. This tool transforms casual wildlife observations into structured ecological data about predator-prey relationships across diverse taxa and geographic regions.
Why it matters
This database democratizes access to ecological interaction data that would be extremely time-consuming and expensive to collect through traditional research methods. It enables scientists, educators, and conservationists to better understand food web structures, track ecological relationships across regions, and identify gaps in our knowledge of species interactions.
Understand the Science
by Bradley C. Allf, Aditi Mallavarapu, David W. Kikuchi, Nikhil Vasudeva, Robert R. Dunn
Citizen science contains abundant yet underutilized data about species interactions. We present Who Eats Whom, a database and public engagement tool for searching and visualizing thousands of feeding relationships derived from iNaturalist data.
Citizen science photographs contain a vast and underused record of species interactions. This Community Page introduces Who Eats Whom, an interactive, searchable food web created from photographs uploaded to iNaturalist.
Source: Who Eats Whom? A global food web derived from citizen science