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112 Gianmarco Ingrosso et al.

has been the case for the Apulian margin, where an almost continuous belt of
patchy white coral bioconstructions connects the south-western Adriatic
populations with those inhabiting the Ionian margin (Angeletti et al.,
2014; D’Onghia et al., 2015).
Biostalactites, deriving from a new and presumably endemic species with
a particularly restricted geographic range (Cape of Otranto), require urgent
protection interventions following the precautionary principle: we cannot
expect to know more about these structures before protection is enforced!
Altogether, all bioconstructions can be assigned to the “reefs” category of
the EU Habitats Directive and, as such, be designated as SCIs. As with the
better known P. oceanica meadows (Fig. 1), bioconstructions are present in
most Italian waters (Fig. 11), even if there are still some gaps in their knowl-
edge, especially for the coast of Calabria, both on the Tyrrhenian and on the

Fig. 11 Distribution pattern of marine bioconstructions along the Italian coast. Bound-
aries of point and polygon features of the data layers have artificially been enhanced for
illustrative purposes, so they do not reflect the real habitat extent.