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.

可通过网络访问的艺术作品数据库是评估特定文化背景下从生态系统和生物多样性中汲取艺术灵感的有用工具。但是，迄今为止，很少有研究开发出量化这种艺术灵感程度的方法。这项研究进行了系统的关键字搜索，以查找与生态系统和生物多样性相关的日本老龄儿童歌曲。在12550首歌曲中，超过四分之一的歌曲在第一句话中都提到了生态系统或生物多样性。最常见的生态系统类型是森林，海洋，河流和湖泊，最常见的生物分类群是植物和鸟类。抽提和外推法表明，提到的最多的家庭是植物。有几个家庭是我们的灵感之源，大多数顶级家庭，包括具有视觉或口腔吸引力的陆生物种（例如开花植物）。歌曲中对农田和城市鸟类的提及要多于其他栖息地中的鸟类。这些结果证明了各种生态系统和相关的野生动植物对于增强日本艺术灵感的重要性。总体而言，我们的研究提供了一种方法论方法，以获取有关自然如何作为艺术灵感来源的见解，并将其应用于各种在线数据库。