Bottom trawling is one of the most efficient fishing activities, but serious and persistent ecological issues have been observed by fishers, scientists and fishery managers. Although China has applied the Beidou fishing vessel position monitoring system (VMS) to manage trawlers since 2006, little is known regarding the impacts of trawling on the sea bottom environments. In this study, continuou...

Bottom trawling has widespread impacts on benthic communities and habitats. It is argued that the impact of chronic bottom trawling on benthic infauna depends on the natural disturbance levels to which benthic communities are adapted. We analysed biomass, production and size structure of two communities from a muddy and a sandy habitat, in relation to quantified gradients of trawling disturbanc...

Citation: Ramalho SP, Lins L, Bueno-Pardo J, Cordova EA, Amisi JM, Lampadariou N, Vanreusel A and Cunha MR (2017) Deep-Sea Mega-Epibenthic Assemblages from the SW Portuguese Margin (NE Atlantic) Subjected to Bottom-Trawling Fisheries. Front. Mar. Sci. 4:350. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00350 Deep-Sea Mega-Epibenthic Assemblages from the SW Portuguese Margin (NE Atlantic) Subjected to Bottom-Trawlin...

Bottom trawls are a globally used fishing gear that physically disturb the seabed and kill non-target organisms, including those that are food for the targeted fish species. There are indications that ensuing changes to the benthic invertebrate community may increase the availability of food and promote growth and even fisheries yield of target fish species. If and how this occurs is the subjec...

Many studies highlight that fish trawling activities cause seafloor erosion, but the assessment of the remobilization of surface sediments and its relocation is still not well documented. These impacts were examined along the flanks and axes of three headless submarine canyons incised on the Barcelona continental margin, where trawling fleets have been operating for decades. Trawled grounds alo...

Trawling remains a controversial method of fishing due to the perceived lack of selectivity of the trawl net, which can result in the capture of a huge quantity and diversity of non-target species, including endangered species, and have a significant effect on the marine ecosystem (KUMAR & DEEPTHI, 2006). Trawl fishing has both direct and indirect impacts on the marine ecosystem as well as on b...

a r t i c l e i n f o The trophic structure of the German Bight soft-bottom benthic community was evaluated for potential changes after cessation of bottom trawling. Species were collected with van-Veen grabs and beam trawls. Trophic position (i.e. nitrogen stable isotope ratios, δ 15 N) and energy flow (i.e. species metabolism approximated by body mass scaled abundance) of dominant species wer...

The effects of bottom trawling on benthic invertebrates include reductions of biomass, diversity and body size. These changes may negatively affect prey availability for demersal fishes, potentially leading to reduced food intake, body condition and yield of fishes in chronically trawled areas. Here, the effect of trawling on the prey availability and diet of two commercially important flatfish...

This study was undertaken to survey impacts of bottom trawling on distribution and diversity of gastropods of the Bahrakan Fishing Area (BFA), of the northwestern coasts of the Persian Gulf. Gastropod samples were collected from depths of 6m and 10m at 18 randomly selected stations in three occasions, right before the opening of shrimp trawling seasonand two weeks and 3 months after the fish...