Cascading Effects of Shrimp Trawling: Increased Benthic Biomass and Increase in Net Primary Production

Trawling has been shown to cause high mortality of discarded species (bycatch) and short-term ecological disturbance to bottom communities in coastal systems, resulting in lowered benthic biomass. Here we report evidence of a trawling-induced trophic cascade resulting in an increase in biomass of benthic polychaetes after the end of the shrimp trawling season in areas open to trawling in North Carolina (USA). Using comparative measurements of abundance of bycatch species and benthos in open and closed trawling management areas and Ecopath network modeling, we show that trawling in the open area has led to increases in deposit-feeding polychaetes and decreases in bycatch species (fish and crabs) that are benthic predators on the polychaetes. We conclude that proposed management actions to reduce the shrimp trawl fishery effort will influence other net and trap fisheries for southern flounder and blue crabs indirectly, as revealed by our network models, and the proposed trawling ban may lead to improvements in other valuable fisheries.