Mollusks Associated with Rhodolith Beds from the Southwestern Atlantic

As presented in Chaps. 1 and 2 , rhodolith beds are found worldwide from polar to tropical regions, but their greatest latitudinal concentration is found in the Southwestern Atlantic (SWA), along the Brazilian Economic Exclusive Zone. In Chaps. 3 and 4 , the authors showed how rhodolith beds are of great importance to marine biodiversity. However, many are the gaps on this matter when it comes to the beds from the SWA—habitats imminently threatened by a series of global and local anthropogenic stressors, including oil and gas industry (shown in Chap. 8 ). Here, to represent the importance of rhodolith bed-associated diversity, we deeply detail the diversity of mollusks associated with rhodolith beds and reveal the importance of these habitats to the SWA marine biodiversity. For instance, >10% of the gastropods occurring in this ocean were registered associated with rhodoliths from only a few small sampling sites at Fernando de Noronha Archipelago (3°S), Abrolhos Bank (17°S), and Queimada Grande Island (24°S). Besides logistical difficulties in sampling extensive areas covered by the SWA rhodoliths, taxonomic investments and human resource training have not been attractive to the young generations of biologists and scientists, triggering a scarcity of high-quality knowledge and material of reference. In consequence, technical staff of environmental agencies, consultant bodies, and committed companies face the lack of technical material to guide the identification of invertebrates associated with rhodolith beds. Thus, most technical reports seem to underestimate the huge diversity of life forms inhabiting the SWA rhodolith beds. In this context, this chapter aims to provide a general panorama of the mollusks associated with rhodolith beds. Also, we provide a photographic guide that will help a large body of technical workers in the identification of the high biodiversity associated with the SWA and thus improve this discussion during environmental licensing on rhodolith beds.