Authors: Espasandín, Lucía; Coll, Marta;Sbragaglia, Valerio;

One of the most important ecological impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems is the distributional range shift of species. Understanding the social implications of this phenomenon is crucial for managers and policymakers for developing effective and proactive adaptive management. Here, we characterize the social dimension of recreational fishing by mining data on YouTube about recreational anglers and spearfishers targeting the white grouper (Epinephelus aeneus), which is expanding northwards in the North-Western Mediterranean Sea. Results showed that social engagement in Italian videos is higher for spearfishers than anglers. We also found a higher positive polarity and positive emotions in spearfishing comments compared to angling comments. Most importantly, we detected a geographical gradient of emotions showing a positive correlation between the emotion “joy” and latitude. This result suggests that videos from higher latitudes, where the white grouper is still a rare species, triggered more joy than at lower latitudes where this species is more common. We demonstrated the potential of social media data for quantifying socio-ecological dynamics across a geographical gradient and, above all, the possibility for real-time monitoring of the social dimension associated with biodiversity redistribution in response to climate change.