Assessing public support for commercial fishing in the ocean twilight zone

Abstract

Biomass in the mesopelagic or “twilight” zone (OTZ) of the ocean is estimated to be 10-100 times that of current annual capture fishery production and plays a fundamental role in regulating global climate via both biological and physical processes. Recently, OTZ fisheries have gained commercial attention to support aquaculture feed production. However, scientific uncertainty remains about the OTZ’s link to carbon cycling processes making it difficult to craft a comprehensive policy to regulate human intervention and mitigate negative consequences. We distribute a choice experiment among U.S. residents to estimate the potential social benefit associated with expanding OTZ fisheries and whether ocean literate individuals experience a different degree of benefits. The files included in this repository will facilitate replication of the choice modeling and summary statistics presented in the manuscript.