Why we do it

Congratulations, your time classifying images on Snapshot Serengeti has resulted in yet another scientific paper. Over 70,000 of you have contributed to analysing the millions of images produced by the 225 Snapshot Serengeti cameras over the last few years. Thanks to all your effort the cameras are still rolling, creating one of the longest running cameratrap studies going.  This data set is so important to scientists because of the size of the area it covers as well as the length of time it has been recording for. It allows them to ask many and varied questions about a naturally functioning healthy ecosystem and in today’s changing world it has never been so important to figure out what makes this planet tick.

The paper ‘The spatial distribution of African Savannah herbivores: species associations and habitat occupancy in a landscape context’ was published last year in Philosophical Transactions B. Visit here to read the article.

http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/371/1703/20150314

The Snapshot Serengeti team argue that if we want to predict the impact of changes/ losses of large mammals in the future we need to have a quantitative understanding of a currently functioning ecosystem. It just so happens that the Snapshot data set is perfect for this. The Serengeti National Park is representative of the grass dominated Savannahs of East Africa which are home to the world’s greatest diversity of ungulate (hoofed animals) grazers.

The team present a neat graphic that shows how the various elements interact to affect herbivore habitat occupancy.

Predators, herbivores, termites, fire, grasses and trees all play a role in determining where different herbivores choose to roam.

It seems that herbivore body size is also important to habitat selection. For example large herbivores survive by bulk grazing whereas small herbivores concentrate on grazing quality over quantity. Recently burned ground results in new vegetation growth. This growth is relatively high in nutrients compared with unburned patches and the same can be found on and around termite mounds. Small herbivores were found to occupy these areas but the sparse coverage does not favour large herbivores that must eat more volume.

The paper highlights the complex relationship between predators, herbivores, vegetation and disturbance and is well worth a read. Next time you are classifying images see if you agree. Do you see many herds of zebra or wildebeest on burnt areas or is it mostly Thompson’s gazelle? It’s another way to look at the images you classify.