Rhodolith Beds Mapping Along Brazilian Continental Shelf

Rhodolith beds play a crucial role in enhancing local biodiversity by providing habitat for a wide variety of marine species. Despite ecosystem services provided, these species have been lost due to disturbances associated with ongoing environmental changes. Their calcification and slow growth of these organisms make them more vulnerable to increasing ocean acidification and warming. The predictive modelling is one technique to find the most suitable places to search these habitats by selecting environmental variables that are known to influence the rhodoliths physiology, associated with occurrence and abundance data. The settlement, distribution and abundance of rhodolith beds throughout the world have been associated with environmental factors such as temperature, light, nutrients and currents. To find the most suitable areas on the Brazilian coast, a recent study used these environmental factors together with results of biomass of rhodolith bed and occurrence data. The models available to Brazil indicate 167,379–229,718 km 2 of niche suitability from south to north of Brazilian coast. Despite the large suitable areas of occurrence along the coast, only a few beds are in environmental protection areas, such as Fernando de Noronha, Abrolhos and Santa Catarina and the Vitória-Trindade chain, and most of them are threatened by coastal pollution and oil exploitation. Conservation policies are needed to protect these organisms and respective environments that are responsible for ecological cascades that find in Brazilian coast their planetary largest refuge.