Recovery of Fish Assemblages After 10 Years of Enforced Trawling Ban in Two Natura 2000 Sites From Central Mediterranean Sea

ABSTRACT Scientific literature supports the benefits of trawling bans for fish assemblages, particularly regarding species richness and fish size, besides the health of food webs and seafloor habitats. Length‐based indicators are commonly applied to track the recovery, offering straightforward and sensitive metrics for detecting shifts in population structure. An Anti‐Trawling Artificial Reef (AAR) was installed in 2013 along the lower boundary of Posidonia oceanica meadows, physically restricting access to illegal trawlers in two Mediterranean Natura 2000 sites (Special Areas of Conservation) located along Italy's central Tyrrhenian coasts. Over the subsequent decade, three fishing campaigns were conducted to assess the potential recovery of artisanal fishery's target fish species and to examine whether recovery patterns differed according to fish life history strategy. Most recorded species were categorized as either opportunistic or periodic, whereas the equilibrium strategy was less common in fish assemblage. A significant increase in fish length occurred in all functional groups, but equilibrium species exhibited a delayed response, with larger individuals appearing only 10 years after the protection. In contrast, opportunistic and periodic species rebounded more quickly, consistent with their respective growth, reproductive and survivorship trade‐offs. Our findings suggest that the AAR approach can foster both biodiversity and small‐scale fisheries recovery in the central Mediterranean, underscoring the value of combining spatial protection with effective physical barriers to deter destructive illegal fishing practices.