Seafood prices reveal impacts of a major ecological disturbance.

Smith, Martin D

Oglend, Atle

Kirkpatrick, A Justin

Asche, Frank

Bennear, Lori S

Craig, J Kevin

Nance, James M

United States

2018-02-15T16:45:14Z

2018-02-15T16:45:14Z

2017-02-14

Coastal hypoxia (dissolved oxygen ≤ 2 mg/L) is a growing problem worldwide that threatens marine ecosystem services, but little is known about economic effects on fisheries. Here, we provide evidence that hypoxia causes economic impacts on a major fishery. Ecological studies of hypoxia and marine fauna suggest multiple mechanisms through which hypoxia can skew a population's size distribution toward smaller individuals. These mechanisms produce sharp predictions about changes in seafood markets. Hypoxia is hypothesized to decrease the quantity of large shrimp relative to small shrimp and increase the price of large shrimp relative to small shrimp. We test these hypotheses using time series of size-based prices. Naive quantity-based models using treatment/control comparisons in hypoxic and nonhypoxic areas produce null results, but we find strong evidence of the hypothesized effects in the relative prices: Hypoxia increases the relative price of large shrimp compared with small shrimp. The effects of fuel prices provide supporting evidence. Empirical models of fishing effort and bioeconomic simulations explain why quantifying effects of hypoxia on fisheries using quantity data has been inconclusive. Specifically, spatial-dynamic feedbacks across the natural system (the fish stock) and human system (the mobile fishing fleet) confound "treated" and "control" areas. Consequently, analyses of price data, which rely on a market counterfactual, are able to reveal effects of the ecological disturbance that are obscured in quantity data. Our results are an important step toward quantifying the economic value of reduced upstream nutrient loading in the Mississippi Basin and are broadly applicable to other coupled human-natural systems.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28137850

1617948114

1091-6490

https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16086

eng

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A

10.1073/pnas.1617948114

bioeconomics

coupled human-natural systems

fisheries

hypoxia

spatial dynamics

Seafood prices reveal impacts of a major ecological disturbance.

Journal article

Smith, Martin D|0000-0002-4714-463X

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28137850

1512

1517

7

Duke

Duke Science & Society

Economics

Environmental Sciences and Policy

Initiatives

Institutes and Provost's Academic Units

Marine Science and Conservation

Nicholas School of the Environment

Sanford

Sanford School of Public Policy

Student

Trinity College of Arts & Sciences

Published

114