Wild birds in YouTube videos: Presence of specific species contributes to increased views

Abstract

Recent advances in understanding cultural ecosystem services (CES) using big data such as social media and other web archives have been primarily made to identify the relationships between the specific indicators for CES and large-scale features of ecosystems, such as vegetation covers and types, ecosystem types, naturalness, and the proportion of areas designated as protected areas. Yet, we know little about how biodiversity and specific species contribute to the enhancement of CES. Here, we examined the factors influencing the number of views in YouTube videos displaying wild birds in nature as a direct indicator of CES related to aesthetic enjoyment, environmental education, and nature experience. We found that the presence of specific wild bird species (i.e., Streptopelia orientalis and Larvivora cyane) increased the number of views while controlling for confounding factors such as the length of the video and the number of days since uploading. We suggest that these species are widely recognized, positively perceived presumably owing to their cultural significance, and preferred among viewers watching videos of wild birds, resulting in more views for videos including these species. Finally, we depicted the geographic distribution (on a national scale) of YouTube videos displaying wild birds in nature. Urban and agricultural land cover around the geotagged location of each video negatively affected the number of views, suggesting that over-exploitation of ecosystems may lead to the loss of important CES. Our study thus demonstrates the contributions of specific wild bird species to enhancing the CES related to aesthetic enjoyment, environmental education, and nature experience, provided through online shared videos.