Modeling Ecology and Economics for Ecosystem-Based Fisheries Management in the Gulf of Mexico

To implement ecosystem-based fisheries management, managers need to consider economic trade-offs—such as giving up fishing today to increase the profitability of the fishery in the future—and ecological trade-offs—such as deciding to catch more of one species to the detriment of another. The Lenfest Ocean Program recently supported a new project with Quinn Weninger, a fisheries economist at Iowa State University, to combine ecological and economic models to learn how to better predict the way trade-offs affect each other and marine ecosystems. 

Weninger will integrate two models for the reef fish fishery in the Gulf of Mexico. An economic model will incorporate commercial and recreational fishermen’s catch choices and evaluate them under different market and regulatory conditions. A collaborating marine ecologist will then integrate these economic choices with an existing ecological model that considers how species in the ocean respond to their environment. 

The result will be a detailed illustration of the trade-offs involved in addressing competing management objectives, such as reducing fish catches or closing fishing areas. Weninger will then apply the model to specific regulations and environmental disturbances impacting the Gulf of Mexico, such as changes in reef fish catch regulations and sea turtle protection measures. While the model will first be developed for the Gulf of Mexico, the methods may be adapted to other fisheries.