Review Reports - Insights from a Survey of Texas Gulf Coast Residents on the Social Factors Contributing to Willingness to Consume and Purchase Lionfish

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear authors,

Inappropriate title because the purpose of the study is unclear. Without a logical goal, we cannot understand "what" the authors are researching because the study is too broad. Without a logical goal, we cannot understand "what" the study is being conducted for. No police abstract only "Control of lionfish with commercial fishing has been proposed as a sustainable management strategy". This is not an aim of scientific research, but the proposal of an action carried out. Besides the absence of the aim the study method is also absent in the abstract. Without a specific method that guides the researcher in his study, the research loses its scientific content.

In paragraph 2 of the introduction comes a new aim "This study focuses on the commercial harvesting of dandelion as a management approach." Also in the introduction section, another aim appears "This study evaluates social acceptance and understanding of the commercial use of lionfish to provide insights into the acceptance of such a management approach". This confirms that the study does not have a logical goal.

At the end of the introduction, the Authors used value judgment when it does not refer to a systematic review of the literature by pointing out "The research presented here is unique in trying to understand the social factors that contribute to an individual's willingness to pay for lionfish, [...]". Who claims that this study is unique? How can the authors claim this?

In the section "Materials and Methods" new value judgment because the authors state something from their vision, without previous research on the subject. "This research provides the most comprehensive assessment of social factors that impact an individual's willingness to consume lionfish, is the first to investigate this provision in Texas and the first to investigate this information on such a large spatial scale."

Also in the section "Materials and Methods", just say that "An original research was developed [...]", it does not refer to the method of the study method or to the type of research and techniques that were adopted in the research. Is this quantitative or qualitative research? Too many unanswered questions.

There's a missing theory in the study. I suggest to authors who use the theory of Sudarmadi et al., which is mentioned briefly in the section "Materials and Methods". I also emphasize that this theory should not be close to the method section, but in the literature review section.

There is no "Literature Review" section in the work. This shows that the authors did not use theories in their research. And if there is no theory in the research, the results and discussion are precarious.

The conclusion also has missing elements: limitations, and the conclusion of the study. That's not clear. There are gaps in all research. Leading to believe that it is market research, not being scientific research. I commend the authors to review their research in full, rewriting it in the structure of a scientific study.

Author Response

The title has been updated to better fit the study.

The abstract has been updated to better encapsulate the aim of the study per the reviewer’s request. We have also added language to the introduction to better clarify the goal of our study. Finally, we have added a new section “Literature review and environmental behavior intention model” that we hope satisfies the reviewer’s request.

We decided to remove the final sentence in paragraph 2 “The study focuses on commercial harvest…” as to not confuse readers about the purpose of this study. Instead, we leave the final paragraph of the introduction to explain the intent of this research and add an additional information identifying the contribution of this study.

We have deleted the phrase “is unique in that it” from the last paragraph. As stated above, we have also added a new section “Literature review and environmental behavior intention model” to identify the gaps that exist within the literature and how this study is filling those gaps.

The sentence has been modified for accuracy – “This survey provides the first and most comprehensive evaluation of social factors that impact an individual’s willingness to consume lionfish in Texas.” Although we still feel the first statement is accurate, it is a value judgement on our part as to what constitutes as “the most comprehensive assessment”. For this reason, we chose to modify the sentence based on the reviewer’s recommendation.

The first sentence in “Materials and Methods” has been re-phrased to say “A survey was developed…” to omit any confusion with the use of “original survey”. This survey was original, in that, the authors developed it based on previous experience with surveys on lionfish awareness and consumption and literature review. Additionally, the following sentence was adjusted to say “An 18-item survey instrument was generated to quantitatively measure perceptions…” to address the reviewer’s other comment.

We have summarized the Sudarmadi et al. information from the “Materials and Methods” and added text to the “Introduction” as recommended by the reviewer. We retained the detailed information and moved it to a different section of its own (Section 2.2 – environmental behavior intention model) that precedes the “Materials and Methods” section.

We have added a “Literature Review and environmental behavior intention model” section following the “Introduction”. We had reviewed the literature prior to this research but did not include this particular section in the original manuscript submission.

The conclusion does not include the limitations of the study because it is stated in the last two paragraphs of the discussion. We present the limitations of the study design and follow up with recommendations for future research in that section. We have added information to this section of the discussion.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to read this interesting work. I found it to be of good quality whit an appropriate methodology, results that are adequately presented and discussed. However, I suggest to improve the manuscript in order to give adequate quality to the research.

Section "Introduction": I suggest to improve this section better emphasizing the gap in the economic literature on this research field and in particular on the Willingness of consumers or citizens to pay or to assume more responsible behaviours in order to protect the environment, marine resources and coastal areas. In addition, the authors should emphasize the originality of the work and clarify the aim of the study. Interesting sources to improve this section, but also section 2.2. are:

Tulone, A., Crescimanno, M., Vrontis, D., & Galati, A. (2020). Are coastal communities able to pay for the protection of fish resources impacted by climate change?. Fisheries Research, 221, 105374.

Giacomarra, M., Crescimanno, M., Vrontis, D., Pastor, L. M., & Galati, A. (2021). The ability of fish ecolabels to promote a change in the sustainability awareness. Marine Policy, 123, 104292.

Galati, A., Pastor, L. M., Crescimanno, M., Giaimo, R., & Giacomarra, M. (2015). Sustainable European fishery and the Friend of the Sea scheme: tools to achieve sustainable development in the fishery sector. International Journal of Globalisation and Small Business, 7(3-4), 247-265.

Section "Material and Methods": the section is clearly presented, the main concern is related to the dataset used that is very old compared to the speed with which consumers behaviors changes.

Section 2.2. must be improved taking into consideration other factor affecting the people intention to adopt a more responsible behaviour, like the Altruism.

Finally I suggest to better emphasize the main implications of the study on the theoretical, managerial and political point of view.

Author Response

We appreciate these comments and are flattered you enjoyed reading the manuscript.

We have added language to the introduction to satisfy the reviewer’s request to include information about the gap in economics literature and willingness to assume more responsible behaviors. We have included all of the recommended citations from the reviewer either in the introduction or in the newly added literature review section.

We recognize the data is being published 4 years post-survey. Unfortunately, we do not have a remedy for this issue apart from adding this as a limitation to this study in the discussion section. We also note that other research has been published on consumer behavior with similar gaps in time of study and time of publication (e.g., Pieniak, Z, Vanhonacker, F., Verbeke, W. 2013. Consumer knowledge and use of information about fish and aquaculture. Food Policy, 40, 25-30.)

We have added a new section, section 2.2, that improves the information about factors affecting peoples intention to adopt more responsible behavior.

We have added language in the introduction and discussion to emphasize the implications of the study per reviewer suggestion.

Reviewer 3 Report

The paper ‘Insights from a survey of Texas Gulf Coast residents to control lionfish with consumption’ is an attempt to follow controlling lionfish with a commercial fishery has been proposed as a sustainable management strategy. Authors tried to analyze social perceptions and consumer willingness to consume lionfish. The subject of the research (strategy of lionfish invasion) is important, but the paper has to be seriously improved before publication in Sustainability journal.

Minor comment:

Provide statistical significance for Figure 4 and 5

Major comments:

Precisely define what is the goal of the research presnted in the paper. The reader can be a little bit confused if the case is to find the new market for lionfish, efficiency of environmental education, strategy for lion fish problem, etc.

The background and the data regarding lionfish invasion should be presented. Please extend introduction by the detailed presentation of the current state of the art.

The study presented in the paper is a supplementary analysis for lionfish invasion problem. Authors should provide additional data regarding ability to fish lionfish by fisherman, fishing composition in Texas Gulf Coast (amount of particular species), ability to consume sea food or the capacity of consumer market focusing on products that can be replaced by lionfish.

The provided analysis is partially out of data (5 years old), so it should be presented, having in mind the growth rate of lionfish population, what is the current state of the art. Also current strategy and results of the strategy applied 5 years ago for lionfish invasion should be presented.

Author Response

We have modified Figure 4 and 5 to present the statistical significance per reviewer recommendation.

The background information provided in the introduction on the lionfish invasion has been expanded. Additionally, we have added more background text to the new “Literature Review” section that we hope addresses the reviewer’s comments/concerns.

Lionfish meat is compared to have similar texture as other commercially harvested species, such as Grouper; however, we do not feel in the context of capture and popularity that lionfish would be an “accepted” substitute for this species (for example). We did not specifically address this question in our survey, rather described the texture and flavor of lionfish meat in the survey and asked individuals if they would be willing to consume the fish. Based on the reviewer’s recommendation, we have added a paragraph to the discussion that addresses commercial fisheries in Texas and possibility of adding lionfish to those markets. Unfortunately, we have to present it as a limitation to the study and commercial harvest of lionfish in general, as we did not specifically ask these questions in the survey and there are notable issues to overcome when trying to harvest lionfish.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Dear Authors

Congrats for the changes made to the study.
The research became clearer with the changes.

Author Response

We really appreciate your kind comments and are thrilled our revisions satisfied your comments/concerns with the initial submission. We are very grateful for you time in reviewing the manuscript.

Reviewer 3 Report

Authors of the paper entitled „Insights from a survey of Texas Gulf Coast residents on the social factors contributing to willingness to consume and purchase lionfish” consider whether commercial harvest of lionfish is a socially accepted management approach based on Texas example. They are trying to identify social factors that contribute to an indiviual’s willingess to consume lionfish. The so called lionfish problem is an interesting study of the strategies to combat marine fish invasions. Although current version of the paper sounds better than original submission, some minor improvements are needed.

Minor comments:

Figure 3,4,5 – remove border form figures, and legend
Figure 5 – vertical scale is from 0 to 1. It looks strange that on the picture one can notice values below 0, and higher than 1. Correct or explain.

Author Response

We have updated figures 3-5 by removing the border from the figures and legends as recommended by the reviewer.

We have also updated the figure caption for Figure 5. The caption has been updated to explain the values below 0 and above 1 to say: “Given that marginal effects are estimated for specified (not observed) values of lionfish concern, some probability estimates fall below 0 or exceed 1.”