Impact of bottom trawling on sediment biogeochemistry: a modelling approach

De Borger, Emil; Tiano, Justin; Braeckman, Ulrike; Rijnsdorp, Adriaan D.; Soetaert, Karline

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-2539-2021

Articles | Volume 18, issue 8

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-2539-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-2539-2021

© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 18, issue 8

Research article

|

22 Apr 2021

Research article |

| 22 Apr 2021

Impact of bottom trawling on sediment biogeochemistry: a modelling approach

Emil De Borger, Justin Tiano, Ulrike Braeckman, Adriaan D. Rijnsdorp, and Karline Soetaert

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-18-2539-2021-supplement

Data sets

Faunal and environmental drivers of carbon and nitrogen cycling along a permeability gradient in shallow North Sea sediments E. Toussaint, E. De Borger, U. Braeckman, A. De Backer, K. Soetaert, and J. Vanaverbeke https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.144994

Rapid organic matter cycling in North Sea sediments E. De Borger, U. Braeckman, and K. Soetaert https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csr.2020.104327

Model code and software

edeborger/Trawling_Biogeochemistry_BGS: Trawling disturbance model Emil De Borger and Karline Soetaert https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4697277

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Short summary

Bottom trawling alters benthic mineralization: the recycling of organic material (OM) to free nutrients. To better understand how this occurs, trawling events were added to a model of seafloor OM recycling. Results show that bottom trawling reduces OM and free nutrients in sediments through direct removal thereof and of fauna which transport OM to deeper sediment layers protected from fishing. Our results support temporospatial trawl restrictions to allow key sediment functions to recover.