Bottom trawl fishing is a controversial activity. It yields about a quarter of the world's wild seafood, but also has impacts on the marine environment. Recent advances have quantified and improved understanding of large-scale impacts of trawling on the seabed. However, such information needs to be coupled with distributions of benthic invertebrates (benthos) to assess whether these populations are being sustained under current trawling regimes. This study collated data from 13 diverse regions of the globe spanning four continents. Within each region, we combined trawl intensity distributions and predicted abundance distributions of benthos groups with impact and recovery parameters for taxonomic classes in a risk assessment model to estimate benthos status. The exposure of 220 predicted benthos-group distributions to trawling intensity (as swept area ratio) ranged between 0% and 210% (mean = 37%) of abundance. However, benthos status, an indicator of the depleted abundance under chronic trawling pressure as a proportion of untrawled state, ranged between 0.86 and 1 (mean = 0.99), with 78% of benthos groups > 0.95. Mean benthos status was lowest in regions of Europe and Africa, and for taxonomic classes Bivalvia and Gastropoda. Our results demonstrate that while spatial overlap studies can help infer general patterns of potential risk, actual risks cannot be evaluated without using an assessment model that incorporates trawl impact and recovery metrics. These quantitative outputs are essential for sustainability assessments, and together with reference points and thresholds, can help managers ensure use of the marine environment is sustainable under the ecosystem approach to management.

中文翻译：

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拖网捕鱼对全球不同地区海底动物群的状况的影响

底拖网捕鱼是一项有争议的活动。它生产了世界上大约四分之一的野生海鲜，但也对海洋环境产生了影响。最近的进展已经量化并提高了对拖网捕捞对海床的大规模影响的理解。然而，此类信息需要与底栖无脊椎动物（底栖动物）的分布相结合，以评估这些种群是否在当前的拖网捕捞制度下得以维持。这项研究整理了来自全球四大洲 13 个不同地区的数据。在每个区域内，我们将拖网强度分布和底栖动物群的预测丰度分布与风险评估模型中分类学类别的影响和恢复参数相结合，以估计底栖动物状态。220 个预测底栖动物群分布对拖网捕捞强度（如扫掠面积比）的暴露范围在 0% 到 210%（平均值 = 37%）之间。然而，底栖生物状态是长期拖网压力下的枯竭丰度指标，作为未拖网状态的比例，介于 0.86 和 1 之间（平均值 = 0.99），其中 78% 的底栖动物群 > 0.95。欧洲和非洲地区以及双壳纲和腹足纲的平均底栖动物状态最低。我们的结果表明，虽然空间重叠研究可以帮助推断潜在风险的一般模式，但如果不使用包含拖网影响和恢复指标的评估模型，则无法评估实际风险。这些定量输出对于可持续性评估至关重要，并且与参考点和阈值一起，