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RESPONSE OF BENTHIC COMMUNITIES AND SEDIMENT TO
DIFFERENT REGIMENS OF FISHING DISTURBANCE IN
EUROPEAN COASTAL WATERS Proposal
No QLRT-2001-00787
RESPONSE
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RESPONSE
RESPONSE
QLRT-2001-787
QLRT-2001-787
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RESPONSE
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About the RESPONSE Project
? It is the aim of RESPONSE to improve our
knowledge of the direct and indirect
consequences of trawling activities and to
understand the processes driving the loss of
biodiversity and ecosystem functioning at
the level of the European coastal waters.
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Objectives and expected achievements

• ? The main scientific objective of RESPONSE is
  to
• understand the effects of fishing
  perturbation on the
• seabed by considering different approaches
  
• ? Closed seasons and Closed areas. Cessation
  of fishing
• activity exploited areas closed to
  fishing practices
• ? Areas that experience different regimens
  of fishing
• disturbance. Different levels of fishing
  activity
• high fishing activity and low fishing
  activity

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Objectives and expected achievements
? RESPONSE will offer an opportunity to provide
new perspectives and management options to
the CFP in order to achieve the
sustainability of marine resources and
protection of biodiversity on marine communities.
? The results can be used in the development
of a Common Fishery and Environment Policy
in the implementation of fishing
regulation. They can help clarify the potential
effectiveness of 1) using
different time limited closure periods
2) the most appropriate level of fishing effort
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Objectives
The specific research objectives of
RESPPONSE 1. To identify Appropriate Study
Areas (ASAs) 2. To estimate the fishing
activity and fishing effort in the
ASAs during a whole year

(? WP1)
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Objectives
The specific research
objectives... 3. To analyse the physical and
biological response of the benthic
ecosystem to different regimens of fishing
activity in the ASAs Multidisciplinary
study considering physical and biological

(? WP 2 and WP3) 4. To
estimate the secondary production of suprabenthos
and infauna in the ASAs
(? WP 4) 5. Synthesis and
recommendations (? WP 5)
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Workplan and methodology
The workplan is broken down into 6 workpackages.
? WP1-WP5 are multidisciplinary,
interrelated, complementary and
progressive ? WP6 is entirely devoted to the
co-ordination and management of RESPONSE
The overall methodology used will consist mainly
of 1) preparation, organisation and review
work 2) exhaustive field work with a series of
research cruises 3) laboratory work based on the
processing of the samples 4) analysis of the
data
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Workpackages
WP1. Estimation of fishing activity and fishing
effort. Identification of the Appropriate Study
Areas (ASAs).

• Experimental cruises will be performed to
  identify the ASAs
• within which commercial trawl fleets regularly
  exploit target
• species.
• Four selected areas undergo heavy exploitation
  and different
• temporal fishing strategies. Control areas

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Mediterranean - Adriatic Sea
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Irish Sea
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Mediterranean - Catalan Sea
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Workpackages
WP1. Estimation of fishing activity and fishing
effort. Identification of the Appropriate Study
Areas (ASAs).

• The spatial and temporal variability of
  different regimes and trawl activity in
• these ASAs will be estimated
• (i) Monitoring spatial distribution and temporal
  variability of the trawl fleet,
• (ii) Mapping trawl tracks and estimating fishing
  intensity
• (iii) Temporal variability of discards
• (iv) Linking fishing effort variability with
  physical changes on the seabed
• Historical data set of the spatial and temporal
  distribution of fish effort will
• be analysed to determine an average yearly
  pattern

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Workpackages
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Workpackages
WP2. Response of the benthic communities and
sediment to cessation of fishery
activity The main objective is to study the
response and recovery of both communities and
sediments to different time periods of cessation
fishing activity in real fishing grounds. The
North Sea The Mediterranean Sea Adriatic Sea and
Catalan coast. ? The physical issues analysis
of morphology, texture and composition of
sediments, water turbidity ? The
biological issues changes in the fish community,
epifauna and infauna structure
variability, and variations in the composition
of discards.
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Workpackages
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Workpackages
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Workpackages
WP3. Response of the benthic communities and
sediment to different levels of fishing
activity. The aim of this WP is to determine the
physical and biological response of both organism
and sediments to different levels of fishing
disturbance in real fishing grounds. The Irish
Sea The Mediterranean Sea Adriatic Sea and
Catalan coast. ?The physical issues analysis of
morphology, texture and composition of
sediments, water turbidity ?The biological
issues changes in the fish community, epifauna
and infauna structure variability, and
variations in the composition of
discards.
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Workpackages
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Workpackages
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Workpackages

• WP 4. Estimation of secondary production of the
  lowest trophic levels.
• WP 4 will estimate the effects of different
  fishing strategies on Secondary Production for
  swimming suprabenthos and infauna
• The analyses will be carried out
• at the level of population structure
  (size-frequency) for
• target species representative of the studied
  community
• on the whole community of organisms changes in
  
• biomass and abundance
  

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Workpackages
WP5. Synthesis and Recommendations The main
objective of this WP will be to bring together
the working groups and to combine the results in
the form of a synthesis. It consists of an
analysis of the synthesis and recommendations
combined with the results from the North Sea, the
Irish Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, and compare
them with older data of fisheries, impact and
benthos.
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Workpackages

• WP5. Synthesis and Recommendations
• Two basic and independent database are necessary
  to
• organise and bank the
• a) Historical and existing data fishing,
  benthos and impact
• b) Data generated by RESPONSE. The project will
  generate
• a large body of inter-related data.

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Workpackages
WP5. Synthesis and Recommendations The expected
results will be very important to the EU. The
combination of the results from the different
geographical areas will generate information in
support of recommendations of the CFP about the
response of benthic communities and sediments to
the same kind of disturbance produced by
different regimens of trawl activity.
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Workpackages

• WP6. Co-ordination and Management.
• This WP is fully devoted to the aspects of
  organisation,
• co-ordination and management
• To improve the efficiency of project development
• To assure communication between the partners
• Organise steering and Co-ordination meetings
• Organise Workshops and Meetings to interface
  with end-users
• groups and policy-makers
• Produce a Final Report including management
  recommendations
• Dissemination of the results

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Informal Cluster INTERACT Interaction between
environment and fisheries ? The sustainable
management of fisheries can only be achieved
by understanding all the effects of such
fisheries on the environment. ?The
informal cluster will promote interactions
between scientists rather than research
activities. ? In order to achieve these aims
the work plan of the cluster is fully
devoted to organise 1) meetings between
the projects involved 2) an open conference
or workshop, to which external scientists
will be invited.
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September 2003 Co-ordination Meeting RESPONSE
1st-3rd September First Internal Report Organised
by MSM, S.L. Alicante Second Cluster Meeting
4th 5th September
March 2004 Internal Meeting RESPONSE 22nd
23rd WS 1 RESPONSE 24th, 25th
26th Organised by CIBM PISA First Cluster
Workshop 25th/26th March
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August/September 2004 Co-ordination Meeting
30th-31st Aug. 1st Sep. Second Internal
Report Organised by AWI Bremerhaven
January 2005 Internal Meeting RESPONSE 24th
25th Second WS RESPONSE 26th, 27th
28th Organised by UWB Bangor Second Cluster
Workshop 27th/28th January
August/September 2005 Co-ordination Public
Meeting RESPONSE Final Report Organised by
CSIC-ICM Barcelona