page_title: Rhodolith
section_title: Habitat
hierarchical_section_title: Rhodolith / Habitat
caption_attribution_description: English: Example of the seaweed and zoobenthic communities found in rhodolith beds on the Brazilian coast. This picture highlights the presence of gastropods, echinoderms and a turf algae assemblage on Desert Island, southern Brazil.
context_page_description: Rhodoliths are colorful, unattached, branching, crustose, benthic marine red algae that resemble coral. Rhodolith beds create biogenic habitat for diverse benthic communities. The rhodolithic growth habit has been attained by a number of unrelated coralline red algae, organisms that deposit calcium carbonate within their cell walls to form hard structures or nodules that closely resemble beds of coral.
  Unlike coral, rhodoliths do not attach themselves to the rocky seabed. Rather, they roll like tumbleweeds along the seafloor until they become too large in size to be mobilised by the prevailing wave and current regime. They may then become incorporated into a semi-continuous algal mat. While corals are animals that are both autotrophic or heterotrophic, rhodoliths produce energy solely through photosynthesis.
  Common rhodolith species include Lithophyllum margaritae, Lithothamnion muellerii, and Neogoniolithon trichotomum. Scientists believe rhodoliths have been present in the world's oceans since at least the Eocene epoch, some 55 million years ago.
context_section_description: Rhodolith beds have been found throughout the world's oceans, including in the Arctic near Greenland, off eastern Australia and in waters off British Columbia, Canada. Globally, rhodoliths fill an important niche in the marine ecosystem, serving as a transition habitat between rocky areas and barren, sandy areas. Rhodoliths provide a stable and three-dimensional habitat onto which a wide variety of species can attach, including other algae, commercial species such as clams and scallops, and true corals. Living rhodolith beds are widely distributed throughout the Gulf of California, Mexico. Rhodoliths are resilient to a variety of environmental disturbances, but can be severely impacted by harvesting of commercial species.
  Rhodoliths come in many shapes, including laminar, branching and columnar growth forms. In shallow water and high-energy environments, rhodoliths are typically mounded, thick or unbranched; branching is also rarer in deeper water, and most profuse in tropical, mid-depth waters.
caption: Benthic communities found in rhodolith beds Example of the seaweed and zoobenthic communities found in rhodolith beds on the Brazilian coast. This picture highlights the presence of gastropods, echinoderms and a turf algae assemblage.[4]
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