Sandy and muddy seabed ecosystems are key components of marine carbon cycling, contributing to climate regulation through carbon storage and nutrient flux modulation. However, anthropogenic activities such as bottom trawling disturb sediments, potentially resuspending and oxidizing buried carbon, and compromising long-term carbon sequestration capacity. This project investigates the impact of bottom trawling on carbon stocks in soft-sediment ecosystems, focusing on sedimentary and biogeochemical alterations and the responses of benthic communities, particularly Marine Animal Forests (MAFs)—complex habitats formed by habitat-forming suspension feeders. Their structural complexity makes them both key components in carbon sequestration processes and especially vulnerable to physical disturbance from trawling, making their inclusion critical to understanding ecosystem-scale impacts. Sediment and water samples will be collected before and after experimental trawling in three Sicilian coastal areas with different fishing pressures: the Gulf of Castellammare, the Gulf of Catania, and the area of Capo Passero. Analyses on sediments and water samples will assess carbon fluxes following trawling, quantify resuspended carbon, and investigate its fate. Controlled laboratory experiments will simulate sediment resuspension to evaluate impacts on the physiology, feeding efficiency, and health of key MAF species.  By coupling ecosystem-level fluxes with organism-level mechanisms, the project will: (i) estimate recovery half-times and carbon-return-on-closure metrics; (ii) identify threshold trawling intensities beyond which MAF-mediated sequestration collapses; (iii) mint a ‘carbon coin’, quantifying the tons of carbon fixed or lost and translating them into present-day market value to expose the hidden economic cost of trawl-induced leakage and (iv) generate actionable benchmarks for climate-smart fisheries management. This framework finally connects seabed disturbance, biological engineering and carbon-climate-economy feedback into a single, policy-ready toolbox for one of the planet’s most intensively trawled seas.