North Sea demersal fisheries prefer specific benthic habitats.

ABSTRACT: INTRODUCTION:The future protection of marine biodiversity through good conservation planning requires both the identification of key habitats with unique ecological characteristics and detailed knowledge of their human utilization through fisheries. Demersal fisheries are important disturbers of benthic habitats. They often have a heterogeneous spatial distribution, pressurizing particular habitats with high abundances of target species. For the North Sea, we quantified the commonness/rarity of habitats in relation to the environmental determinants of so-called fishing hotspots, to support better-informed conservation planning of benthic habitats in this intensively used continental shelf. METHODS:We first distinguished 9 main seascapes in the study area based on seabed morphology. Secondl

SUBMITTER: van der Reijden KJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6298764 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature