Short-term effects of bottom trawling on a 'hard-bottom' (pebble, cobble, and boulder) seafloor were studied on the outer continental shelf in the eastern Gulf of Alaska. Eight sites were trawled in August 1996; then, from a research submersible we videotaped each trawl path and a nearby reference transect to obtain quantitative data. Boulders were displaced, and large epifaunal invertebrates w...

Demersal trawling causes significant impact on marine benthic habitats including sediment biogeochemistry and faunal composition. To examine the effect of shrimp trawling on benthic sedimentary habitats a replicated Before/After (B/A) experiment was performed in the Gullmarfjord, Western Sweden, after 6 years protection against trawling activities. The experimental area was randomly divided int...

Bottom trawling is known to affect benthic faunal communities but its effects on sediment suspension and seabed biogeochemistry are less well described. In addition, few studies have been carried out in the Baltic Sea, despite decades of this unique brackish environment frequent occurrence areas where hypoxia low variable salinity already act as ecosystem stressors. We measured physical biogeoc...

The harvest of animals by humans may constitute one of the strongest evolutionary forces affecting wild populations. Vulnerability to harvest varies among individuals within species according to behavioural phenotypes, but we lack fundamental information regarding the physiological mechanisms underlying harvest-induced selection. It is unknown, for example, what physiological traits make some i...