Environmental harm to deep-sea coral reefs on seamounts is widely attributed to bottom trawl fishing. Yet, accurate diagnoses of impacts truly caused by trawling are surprisingly rare. Similarly, comprehensive regional assessments of fishing damage rarely exist, impeding evaluations of, and improvements to, conservation measures. Here we report on trawling impacts to deep-sea scleractinian coral reefs in a regional (10–100s of km) fishery seascape off Tasmania (Australia). Our study was based on 148 km of towed camera transects (95 transects on 51 different seamounts with 284,660 separate video annotations and 4,674 “on-seamount” images analysed), and commercial trawling logbook data indexing fishing effort on and around seamounts. We detect trawling damage on 88% (45 of 51) of seamounts. Conversely, intact deep-sea coral reefs persist in refuge areas on about 39% (20 of 51) of the seamounts, and extend onto rocky seabed adjacent to seamounts. Depth significantly shapes the severity of trawl damage. The most profound impacts are evident on shallow seamounts (those peaking in < 950 m depths) where recent and repeated trawling reduced reefs built by scleractinian corals to rubble, forming extensive accumulations around seamount peaks and flanks. At intermediate depths (∼950–1,500 m), trawling damage is highly variable on individual seamounts, ranging from substantial impacts to no detection of coral loss. Deep seamounts (summit depth > 1,500 m) are beyond the typical operating depth of the trawl fishery and exceed the depth range of living deep-sea coral reefs in the region. Accurately diagnosing the nature and extent of direct trawling impacts on seamount scleractinian coral reefs must use stringent criteria to guard against false positive identifications of trawl impact stemming from either (1) misidentifying areas that naturally lacked deep-sea coral reef as areas where coral had been removed, or (2) attributing trawling as the cause of natural processes of reef degradation. The existence of sizeable deep-sea coral reef refuges in a complex mosaic of spatially variable fishing effort suggests that more nuanced approaches to conservation may be warranted than simply protecting untrawled areas, especially when the biological resources with conservation value are rare in a broader seascape context.

中文翻译：

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深海珊瑚礁在渔业海景中对海山的命运：有哪些影响，哪些仍然存在，哪些受到保护？

对海山深海珊瑚礁的环境危害普遍归因于底拖网捕捞。然而，对真正由拖网捕捞造成的影响进行准确诊断的情况非常罕见。同样，对渔业损害的全面区域评估也很少存在，这阻碍了对保护措施的评估和改进。在这里，我们报告了拖网捕鱼对塔斯马尼亚（澳大利亚）附近区域（10-100 公里）渔业海景中的深海石珊瑚礁的影响。我们的研究基于 148 公里的拖曳相机横断面（51 个不同海山上的 95 个横断面，分析了 284,660 个单独的视频注释和 4,674 个“海山上”图像）和商业拖网捕捞日志数据，索引了海山及其周围的捕捞活动。我们在 88%（51 个中的 45 个）海山上检测到拖网捕鱼损坏。反过来，完整的深海珊瑚礁持续存在于约 39%（51 个中的 20 个）海山的避难区，并延伸到与海山相邻的岩石海床上。深度显着影响拖网破坏的严重程度。最深远的影响在浅海山（那些在< 950 m 深度达到顶峰的海山）很明显，在那里最近和反复拖网将石珊瑚珊瑚建造的珊瑚礁减少为瓦砾，在海山峰顶和侧翼周围形成广泛的堆积物。在中等深度（约 950-1,500 米），拖网捕鱼对个别海山的破坏变化很大，从严重影响到没有检测到珊瑚损失。深海山（峰顶深度 > 1,500 m）超出了拖网渔业的典型作业深度，超出了该地区深海活珊瑚礁的深度范围。准确诊断拖网拖网对海山石珊瑚礁的直接影响的性质和程度必须使用严格的标准，以防止由于以下任一原因导致对拖网影响的误报识别 (1) 将自然缺乏深海珊瑚礁的区域误认为是珊瑚已经生长的区域移除，或 (2) 将拖网捕捞归因于珊瑚礁退化的自然过程。在空间可变的捕捞活动的复杂镶嵌中存在相当大的深海珊瑚礁保护区表明，可能需要采取更细致入微的保护方法，而不仅仅是保护未捕捞区域，尤其是当具有保护价值的生物资源在更广泛的海景背景下很少见时.