Impactes físics i biogeoquímics de la pesca d'arrossegament profunda al mediterrani occidental

• Autores: Sarah Paradis Vilar
• Directores de la Tesis: Pere Puig Alenya (dir. tes.), Pere Masqué Barri (codir. tes.)
• Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2020
• Idioma: español
• ISBN: 9788449096600
• Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Daniel Martín Sintes (presid.), Timothy I. Eglinton (secret.), Peter W. Swarzenski (voc.)
• Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Ciencia y Tecnología Ambientales por la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
• Materias:
  • Ciencias tecnológicas
    • Ingeniería y tecnología del medio ambiente
• Enlaces
  • Tesis en acceso abierto en: TDX
• Resumen

  • Bottom trawling is considered one of the most harmful anthropogenic activities in the marine environment given its widespread occurrence, high frequency, and intensity. Since bottom trawling gear are in continuous contact with the seafloor, it can modify seabed morphology by erasing natural sedimentary structures and resuspend large volumes of sediment, which can be advected from trawling grounds, eroding the seafloor and altering sediment properties. With the global expansion of bottom trawling to deeper fishing grounds since the mid-XXst century, it is expected that the impacts caused by this activity will be intensified, but studies assessing them are still scarce. The aim of this thesis was to study the physical and biogeochemical impacts of deep bottom trawling in the Western Mediterranean margin. The physical impact of bottom trawling in submarine canyons of the Catalan margin was studied through the analyses of over 30 sediment cores collected in canyon flanks and axes of six major submarine canyons incising the continental slope. This study observed that trawling grounds located along the canyon flanks are highly eroded, and this sediment is displaced towards the canyon axis, leading to a two- to four-fold increase in sedimentation rates in their axes since the expansion of bottom trawling grounds to deeper environments during the 1960s and 1970s. Trawling-enhanced sedimentation in these canyons are limited to areas located next to bottom trawling grounds, and trawling-derived sedimentation rates decrease towards the lower canyon axis with greater distance from bottom trawling grounds, leaving deeper areas unaffected. A second increase in sedimentation rates was observed in one of the canyons in the early XXIst century derived from the recent modernization of bottom trawling fleets, highlighting the clear interrelation between fleet technification and the modification of sedimentary regimes. These continuous physical alterations can also modify the biogeochemistry of deep bottom trawling grounds, depleting sedimentary organic matter. In the Gulf of Castellammare (Sícily), the accumulation of fresh and nutritionally rich organic matter in nutrient-deprived (20-60 % less organic matter) and eroded deep bottom trawling stimulated the microbial response, causing high turnover rates of labile organic matter. However, the high trawling frequency quickly erodes freshly-accumulated sediment, inhibiting the recovery of fishing grounds in the Gulf of Castellammare. This initially suggested that temporal trawling closures could mitigate the impacts of bottom trawling. However, the comparison of sediment cores collected during several seasons, including towards the end of a 2-month trawling closure in fishing grounds of Palamós Canyon revealed that this management strategy is insufficient to mitigate the impacts of bottom trawling. Organic matter in the trawled site was especially impoverished in the most labile biomarkers (52-70 % loss), hampering the preservation of organic matter in deep-sea sediments and diminishing the nutritional quality on trawling grounds, which could have transcendental impacts on benthic communities, including the targeted commercial species. These impacts persisted in every sampling season, even after the temporal trawling closure, since the low sedimentation rates of the area is not capable of restoring these fishing grounds. These results highlight the vulnerability and low resiliency of deep-sea environments, and stresses that deep-sea trawling damages the seafloor’s integrity beyond repair. Considering the global expansion of bottom trawling grounds, these impacts could be occurring in trawled continental slopes worldwide.