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Are There Ecological Merits to Trawling The Seabed?
海底拖网捕鱼有生态价值吗？
Trawling the seabed for fish is an environmental disaster; it wrecks ecosystems,destroys fish stocks and leaves behind a marine desert. But there is growing evidence that the effect is sometimes very different, with trawling increasing fish stocks from the North Sea to the California coast. A new modelling study may for the first time have demonstrated why.
海底拖网捕鱼是一种生态灾害，它破坏了生态系统，破坏了鱼类种群，造成了海洋沙漠化。但越来越多的证据表明，影响有时也可能会大不相同，从北海到加利福尼亚海岸的拖网捕鱼反而增加了鱼类种群。一种新的模拟研究首次对其中的原因进行了解答。
Trawlers attach large nets to a metal beam dragged across the seabed to catch bottom-dwelling fish. Greenpeace likens it to "driving a huge bulldozer through a forest",leaving a flat,featureless desert on the seabed.
拖网渔民把大网系在金属横梁上，然后拖到海床的另一边，以捕捉海底栖息的鱼类。绿色和平组织把其比喻成“驾驶一辆巨大的推土机穿越一片森林”，这使得海底成为了平坦、毫无特色的沙漠。
Trawling clearly does remove fish,such as large crustaceans and shellfish,says Daniel van Denderen of the Wageningen Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies in the Netherlands. But this is a lucky break for smaller species lurking in the sandy seabed,such as worms. They survive and,with fewer rivals,flourish.
荷兰瓦格宁根研究所的丹尼尔·登德伦说，拖网捕鱼很显然可以捕捉到一些例如大型甲壳类和贝类的鱼类，荷兰瓦格宁根研究所主要从事海洋资源和生态系统的研究。但是这对潜伏在沙质海底小型的品种来说是一种幸运，例如蠕虫。它们可以生存下来，因为拥有更少的对手，因此可以大量繁殖。
And if,as is often the case,these smaller critters are the main food for fish,then the overall effect is to nurture more marine life.Imants Priede,at the University of Aberdeen,UK,says there is growing evidence that—while far from universal—the phenomenon is real. "On continental shelves such as the southern North Sea,where shifting sands and gravels are stirred up by strong tidal currents,even trawling more than once a year may be beneficial for some fish stocks," he says.
而且如果这是常有的情况，这些规模较小的小动物是鱼类的主要食物，那么整体的影响就是培养了更多的海洋生物。英国阿伯丁大学的伊蒙特斯·皮瑞德说，越来越多的证据表明，尽管并不普遍，但这种现象是存在的。皮瑞德会说“在一些海洋大陆架上，例如北海南部，那里强劲的潮流激起了流沙和砾石，但即使每年超过一次的拖网捕鱼可能对一些鱼类有益。”
