Crowdsourced Games to Understand Animal Camouflage

February 20, 2014 By IdeaConnection

745px-Peacock_Flounder_Bothus_mancus_in_KonaCamouflage is the art of not being seen, and in nature it is vital for survival. Predators and prey are able to blend into the background via a number of techniques including coloring and changing body shape to appear similar to another object.

Scientists interested in learning more about camouflage in nature are turning to the crowds for help, and they’re using a clutch of research-orientated games.

Dr Martin Stevens of the University of Exeter studies animal concealment and the way it attempts to fool the visual systems of predators. In addition to field work his BBSRC-funded research (Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council) involves the development of community-based game studies that utilize crowdsourcing.

Spot the Birdie

One of the purposes of the games from the scientific perspective is to understand more about how predators see their prey.

In the first game – Where is that nightjar? – players have to spot a bird as quickly as possible.

The second game – Where is that nest? – challenges players to find eggs belonging to different species and also compares dichromatic and trichromatic vision.

Some animals have dichromatic vision that can detect medium and short wavelengths of light, and others have trichromatic vision that can see in long wavelengths. Birds use ultraviolet.

 

Data from the games will be used with that compiled in the field:

Stevens said: “One of the main aims is to analyse egg detection times by humans under relatively controlled conditions, and then to link that to the predicted level of camouflage based on our image analyses and also how well the nests fared in the field against real predators.”

Revealing Answers

By working with the crowds the scientists hope to get some answers to such key questions as: What types of camouflage work in different habitat types? How does the degree of camouflage affect the probability of being eaten?

For more info about how crowdsourcing is helping scientists with their research, click here.


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