Acronym COMSOM
Category
Fisheries
Title Evaluación del estado de comunidades bentónicas sometidas a distinto grado de impacto pesquero y basura marina como herramienta de gestión del ecosistema - Assessment of the state of benthic communities subjected to different degrees of fishing impact and marine litter as an ecosystem management tool Programme National Programme
Instrument (FP6)
Contact Type (FP7)
Strand (Interreg)
NA
Theme (FP7)
Activity Area (FP6)
Regional Area (Interreg)
Action (COST)
NA
Specific Programme (FP7)
NA
Funding source National Coordinator M. Demestre Coordinator email montse@icm.csic.es
Coordinator institution
CSIC-ICM - Spanish National Research Council; Institut de Ciències del Mar (Spain)
Institutions involved
NA
Start year 2009 End year 2011 Funding (€) € NA Website NA Summary It is well known that trawling causes significant damage to marine organisms and communities: it directly influences the resources and indirectly affects the organisms living on the bottom (benthos), either permanently (sponges, cnidarians, etc. ..) or moving around (crabs, starfish, etc. ..) and in general on habitats. To the effects of fishing on the seabeds and on the preservation of its biodiversity, the threat of marine litter is added, and especially of plastics, which end up favoring one type of organisms over others. The COMSOM project was born from the urgent need to develop appropriate tools for an effective assessment of these impacts on communities and their habitats. Its main objective is to build models that explain the changes that take place in the soft bottom communities of trawl fishing grounds, depending on the fishing activity. At the same time, it is intended to evaluate the impact of sedimented marine litter. It is expected that the obtained models will lead to the selection of indicators capable of representing the state of disturbance of organisms and communities in relation to different levels of fishing effort and density of marine litter, as well as their interaction. The purpose of this project is to facilitate the recovery of marine biodiversity, of fishing grounds so that organisms achieve a better life condition: for this, it is necessary to clearly propose a type of management that reduces anthropogenic disturbance and protects these benthic ecosystems.
Keywords
Fishing effort;
Environmental impact;
Physical disturbance;
Marine litter;
Benthic communities;
Impacts;
Discard;
Marine Region
53
Northern Spain (GSA 6)
61
Eastern Ionian Sea (GSA 20)
47
Ligurian and North Tyrrhenian Sea (GSA 9)
3
Marine Region Map
