The impact of bottom trawling on benthic fauna of the North Sea

摘要: Abstract This paper reviews the impact of bottom trawling — beam- or groundtrawl on animals sea bed. The area study is restricted to North Sea, however, final conclusions have a far wider application. Protests against use trawls date back period their introduction; for northwest Europe this was thirteenth century, and it still evokes protests up present day. Trawling does affect benthic life, trawl penetrates 30 mm into soil, depending substrate. All types are basically similar in action Beam with tickler chains catch much more benthos than do ground without chains. Some groups suffer damage others, e.g. echinoderms. It not unlikely that long-term shift species numbers may occur along same lines such as has been found German Wadden Sea where polychaetes incline molluscs crustaceans decline.