Fig. 1: Geographic overview of the study area.

A Map of the central and south-eastern North Sea with stations sampled with van Veen grabs. The background heatmap displays the bottom trawling intensity calculated as swept area ratio (SAR) per year (see the main text for details on SAR). Panels (B, C) show zoomed sections of the two areas sampled on two different expeditions (HE538 and HE562).