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Habitat-Specific Effects of Fishing Disturbance on Benthic Species Richness in Marine Soft Sediments

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Abstract

Around the globe, marine soft sediments on continental shelves are affected by bottom trawl fisheries. In this study, we explore the effect of this widespread anthropogenic disturbance on the species richness of a benthic ecosystem, along a gradient of bottom trawling intensities. We use data from 80 annually sampled benthic stations in the Dutch part of the North Sea, over a period of 6 years. Trawl disturbance intensity at each sampled location was reconstructed from satellite tracking of fishing vessels. Using a structural equation model, we studied how trawl disturbance intensity relates to benthic species richness, and how the relationship is mediated by total benthic biomass, primary productivity, water depth, and median sediment grain size. Our results show a negative relationship between trawling intensity and species richness. Richness is also negatively related to sediment grain size and primary productivity, and positively related to biomass. Further analysis of our data shows that the negative effects of trawling on richness are limited to relatively species-rich, deep areas with fine sediments. We find no effect of bottom trawling on species richness in shallow areas with coarse bottoms. These condition-dependent effects of trawling suggest that protection of benthic richness might best be achieved by reducing trawling intensity in a strategically chosen fraction of space.

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Acknowledgments

We thank T. Essington and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful suggestions to improve the manuscript and S. de Valk and J. Cremer for their help in assembling the data. P. D. vD. wants to thank D. R. Schoolmaster Jr., H. Koike, and E. Wall for their contributions during the first analysis and L. McPhee for her contribution in the preparation of the manuscript. This research was partially supported through the policy support research programme (BO) of the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs to P. D. vD. and T. vK. and the FP7 project BENTHIS (312088) to N. T. H., A. D. R. and T. vK.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wageningen Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies (IMARES), P.O. Box 68, 1970 AB, IJmuiden, The Netherlands

    P. Daniël van Denderen, Niels T. Hintzen, Adriaan D. Rijnsdorp & Tobias van Kooten

  2. Aquaculture and Fisheries, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 338, 6700 AH, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    P. Daniël van Denderen & Adriaan D. Rijnsdorp

  3. Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, PO Box 59, 1790 AB, Den Burg, The Netherlands

    Piet Ruardij

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  1. P. Daniël van Denderen
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Correspondence to P. Daniël van Denderen.

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Author contributions

P.D.vD., A.D.R and T.vK conceived the study. N.T.H. contributed with trawl disturbance estimates; P.R. contributed with primary productivity estimates; P.D.vD. performed the research and together with T.vK. wrote the manuscript and all discussed results and commented the manuscript.

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van Denderen, P.D., Hintzen, N.T., Rijnsdorp, A.D. et al. Habitat-Specific Effects of Fishing Disturbance on Benthic Species Richness in Marine Soft Sediments. Ecosystems 17, 1216–1226 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-014-9789-x

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