Social media reveal visitors’ interest in flora and fauna species of a forest region

HUERTAS HERRERA, ALEJANDRO; TORO-MANRÍQUEZ, MÓNICA D.R.; SOLER ESTEBAN, ROSINA; LORENZO, CRISTIAN; LENCINAS, MARÍA VANESSA; MARTÍNEZ PASTUR, GUILLERMO

Ecosystems and People

Taylor and Francis Ltd.

Año: 2023 vol. 19

2639-5916

Visitor interests can be crucial to understanding humans’ connectedness in nature. We analysed the relationship between people and flora and fauna species (native and exotic) through YouTube videos of a forest region (southern Patagonia) posted by visitors from different parts of the world. We characterised the species of flora and fauna observed by the visitors and calculated the time that appears in the videos as a proxy for their connectedness to biodiversity. The biodiversity observations were contrasted against visitors’ sociodemographic characteristics (age and gender) by the Van der Waerden test and multivariate analyses. We created a sociogram that showed connections among species through visitor links to these data. Our results reveal different degrees of relationship between species, where some exotic ones were more preferred than natives (Van der Waerden test p =