I heard you love snapping scenic shots outdoors?

I heard you love snapping scenic shots outdoors?

Author: Messor

Tired of the suffocating monotony of the concrete jungle and often venturing into the wild, you might not be unfamiliar with these uniquely shaped lines and surfaces:

Image source: Green Field - Liuzijiao

In the mountains and fields on the outskirts of the city, you trace the outline of a forest with your footsteps, or map out the direction of a trail, valley, or ridge running north, south, east, or west.

When feeling inspired, you mark unique spots at the start, end, or along the way with one or two photos—as guidance for others and as a personal memento.

If you’re one of those people, come join our ant colony.

These photos of yours may also continue to appear in your social media feeds, earning you a good bunch of likes.

Or they might just sit in various outdoor forums, fitness apps, and your photo albums, taking up storage space.

Wait… so what does this have to do with ants?

Hold on, that’s exactly the project we’re inviting you to take part in.

Harvest ants are a type of ant with a strong hoarding instinct. They gather various plant seeds in the wild, process them into “seed bread” back in the nest, and store them as future food for the colony. Their actions also help disperse plants. That’s why they’re named after Messor, the ancient Roman god of agriculture and harvest.

That’s where our project name comes from.

Your photos are like those seeds—originally hidden across various mountains, fields, and forests, carrying rich local ecological information, recorded and collected by enthusiasts scattered around.

We hope to gather them all, hand them over to ecologists to extract and refine the information, and help us better understand the nature quietly serving us around our cities—nature whose balance is constantly being disrupted by our daily activities.

Still doubting the value of your photos? They might just help solve problems like these:

What is the species composition of the green area you walked around or through?

How have the biological communities there adapted compared to their natural state?

How do they interact with the adjacent urban areas, and how much have they been affected by urban expansion?

Do our activities cause irreversible damage, or do they lead to a new balance?

These questions may have flashed through your mind at some point but have lingered in the minds of urban ecologists. Your casual snapshot could very well become a key piece of the puzzle leading to the answers.