Which of the following best refers to the marginal user cost when harvesting leatherback sea turtle eggs from a nesting site beach?

Question

BlackTom AI · Accepted Answer

Marginal user cost is the present value of future benefits forgone by using one more unit of a resource today rather than leaving it for future use. In biological-resource contexts (like a turtle population), it measures the lost future net benefits from the reduction in the population caused by current harvesting.

1. Relevant concepts
- Marginal user cost (MUC): opportunity cost of current extraction in terms of discounted future benefits.
- Renewable-resource dynamics: an egg → hatchling → juvenile → sexually mature adult, which generates future benefits (ecotourism, predation roles, potential harvest, ecosystem services).
- Discounting: future benefits are converted to present value using a discount rate r.

2. Step-by-step reasoning
- Removing one egg today eliminates the chance that egg will produce a mature turtle that contributes benefits in future years.
- The MUC equals the present value of all those future net benefits that the would‑be adult would have generated over its lifetime.
- Represent those future annual benefits as B_t in year t after maturity. If the egg would mature at time T and then produce benefits for years t = T...T+N, the MUC is the sum of B_t discounted back to today.

3. Calculation (symbolic intermediate steps)
- MUC = Σ_{t=T}^{T+N} B_t / (1 + r)^t
- Example: if a future annual benefit is B each year for N years starting at T, MUC = B * Σ_{t=T}^{T+N} (1 + r)^{-t}.
- This expression shows that harvesting an egg today imposes a calculable present-value loss equal to future benefits lost — the marginal user cost.

4. Why the correct option is correct
- Option “Harvesting the eggs prevents their hatching and becoming sexually mature, reproducing, and growing larger” directly describes the causal pathway that creates MUC: current use reduces future productive capacity and benefits. That loss of future benefits is exactly the marginal user cost.

5. Why other options are incorrect
- “Loss in ecosystem services from their no longer preying on jellyfish” describes one category of future benefit lost (an ecosystem service), but MUC is the overall present value of all such lost benefits, not just predation on jellyfish.
- “Foregone option for potential genetic materials” is an option or existence value (non-use value), not specifically the marginal user cost of one additional harvested egg.
- “Possibility of species extinction” is a catastrophic outcome or stock-level risk, not the marginal, incremental opportunity cost associated with harvesting one additional egg.
- “None of the above” is wrong because one option matches the definition.

6. Conclusion
The correct choice is “Harvesting the eggs prevents their hatching and becoming sexually mature, reproducing, and growing larger.” This statement describes the precise future benefits forgone that constitute the marginal user cost, matching the provided answer.

Which of the following best refers to the marginal user cost when harvesting leatherback sea turtle eggs from a nesting site beach?单项选择题

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