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Rhodolith/Maërl Beds: A Global Perspective pp 281–298Cite as

Mediterranean Rhodolith Beds

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Part of the book series: Coastal Research Library ((COASTALRL,volume 15))

Abstract

The available references to rhodolith beds have been analyzed for a total of 125 locations in the Mediterranean Sea, equally distributed in the eastern and western sub-basins. Mediterranean rhodolith beds occur from 9 to 150 m of water depth, with a mean depth of about 55 m in both sub-basins. Most rhodolith beds lay within the depth range 30–75 m, while those extending deeper than 75 m are about 18 % of the total, and those shallower than about 25 m are uncommon. The deepest and the largest Mediterranean rhodolith beds are both located in the Balearic Sea. Water motion from bottom currents, waves, and tides is needed to keep rhodoliths unburied, within mesotrophic to oligotrophic water conditions. Rhodolith beds are commonly small (<0.01 km2) and multispecific, showing growth-form mixing and a much higher coralline biodiversity than Atlantic beds. They are vulnerable to physical disturbance by fishing gears and smothering, and to water pollution by organic enrichment and sewage. The existing instruments of legal protection appear ill defined, since these are based on scientific literature mostly derived from northern Europe, where specific and different environmental settings, species composition, depth distribution, and anthropogenic pressures occur. The protection of a specific habitat type cannot be effectively gained without access to geospatial and compositional data and an increased research effort is needed to improve taxonomic inventories, habitat mapping, and monitoring activities on a basin scale.

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Acknowledgments

Part of the geographic data compilation for the Aegean Sea was performed within the MAREA “Mediterranean Sensitive Habitats” (MEDISEH) project (service contract SI2.600741) aiming to map and model the distribution of priority habitats along the Mediterranean coasts. The European Research Network COCARDE and the EU project MedSeA in the background of this work have created favorable conditions for exchange of data and ideas to grow.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Univ. of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 4, 20126, Milan, Italy

    Daniela Basso

  2. ISPRA – Italian National Institute for Environmental Protection and Research, Via V. Brancati 60, 00144, Rome, Italy

    Lorenza Babbini

  3. Centro de Investigación Marina de Santa Pola, Universidad de Alicante, 03080, Alicante, Spain

    Angel Alfonso Ramos-Esplá

  4. Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Institute of Oceanography, 712, 19013, Anavyssos, Greece

    Maria Salomidi

Authors
  1. Daniela Basso
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  2. Lorenza Babbini
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  3. Angel Alfonso Ramos-Esplá
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  4. Maria Salomidi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Daniela Basso .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biología Marina, Universidad de Baja California Sur, La Paz, BCS, Mexico

    Rafael Riosmena-Rodríguez

  2. School of Biological Sciences University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Wendy Nelson

  3. Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de Granada, Granada, Spain

    Julio Aguirre

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Basso, D., Babbini, L., Ramos-Esplá, A.A., Salomidi, M. (2017). Mediterranean Rhodolith Beds. In: Riosmena-Rodríguez, R., Nelson, W., Aguirre, J. (eds) Rhodolith/Maërl Beds: A Global Perspective. Coastal Research Library, vol 15. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-29315-8_11

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