Measuring artistic inspiration drawn from ecosystems and biodiversity: A case study of old children’s songs in Japan

Web accessible databases of artistic work are useful tools for evaluating artistic inspiration drawn from ecosystems and biodiversity in a specific cultural context. However, to date, few studies have developed methods to quantify the degree of this artistic inspiration. This study performed a systematic keyword search to find old Japanese children’s songs related to ecosystems and biodiversity. Of 12,550 songs, more than a quarter referred to ecosystems or biodiversity in the first sentence itself. The most common ecosystem types were forest, ocean, rivers and lakes, and the most common taxonomic groups were plants and birds. Rarefaction and extrapolation methods showed that the highest number of families mentioned was that of plants. Several families served as sources of inspiration, with most of the top-ranking families including terrestrial species with visual or oral attractiveness (e.g. flowering plants). Farmland and urban birds were referred to more in songs than birds living in other habitats. These results demonstrate the importance of a variety of ecosystems and associated wildlife for enhancing artistic inspiration in Japan. Overall, our study provides a methodological approach to gain insights on how nature works as a source of artistic inspiration, which could be applied to a variety of online databases.