Effects of bottom trawling and hypoxia on benthic invertebrate communities

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  • P Daniel van Denderen
    Technical University of Denmark
  • Anna Tornroos
    Åbo Akademi University, Turku
  • Marija Sciberras
    Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
  • Hilmar Hinz
    Mediterranean Institute for Advanced Studies (IMEDEA)
  • Rene Friedland
    Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research
  • Rafal Lasota
    University of Gdansk
  • Maria Cristina Mangano
    Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn, Napoli
  • Craig Robertson
  • Sebastian Valanko
    International Council for the Exploration of the Sea, Copenhagen
  • Jan Geert Hiddink
Marine benthic habitats in continental shelf regions are increasingly impacted by hypoxia caused by the combination of eutrophication and climate warming. Many regions that have the potential for hypoxic conditions are being fished by mobile bottom-contacting fishing gears. The combined effects of trawling and hypoxia may be synergistic and disproportionally impact benthic fauna, or they may act antagonistically, leading to smaller trawl impacts in hypoxic areas. Yet, few studies have quantified how bottom trawling and hypoxia interact to affect benthic communities. Here we examine these combined effects on benthic community biomass and abundance, the number of large organisms, the longevity distribution of the community and the vertical position of fauna in the sediment in the southern Baltic Sea. We find large declines in benthic biomass and abundance that co-occur with declines in near-bed oxygen concentrations from 5.8 to 0.8 ml O2 l-1. Conversely, no relationships and weak positive relationships are found between bottom trawl disturbance and benthic community biomass and abundance. No interacting effects between hypoxia and trawling are detected. Our findings therefore highlight a low likelihood of synergistic impacts of bottom trawling and hypoxia on the benthic communities studied. These results suggest that management may prioritize benthic protection from fishing in regions that are not in a state of oxygen stress

Keywords

  • Baltic Sea, Body size, Bottom-trawling, Hypoxia, Longevity, Macrofauna, Sediment, Vertical position
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)13-27
Number of pages15
JournalMarine Ecology Progress Series
Volume694
Early online date11 Aug 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 11 Aug 2022

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