Sea Raspberries

Gersemia rubiformis

Sea Raspberries

Gersemia rubiformis

Other Common Names
Sea strawberries, soft red coral

Rocky Coast

Other Common Names

Sea strawberries, soft red coral

At the Aquarium

Rocky Coast

Appearance

This soft pink coral is a colonial animal, with a single lumpy colony typically about 2-6 inches in diameter. They can range in color from cream to orange or even a deep pink or red. Each polyp is an individual and will extend its 8 tentacles, which have delicate branches, for capturing food.

Habitat

Shallow subtidal to depths of 137 feet in Oregon, typically grows on hard surfaces/rocky bottoms, but can also be found attached to stones or shell fragments.

Diet

Filter feeds on zooplankton.

Life History

Most colonies will be either male or female, but there are occasional colonies able to release both eggs and sperm. The females brood their eggs in their gastrovascular cavity, where development takes place. The larvae will exit the polyp through its mouth. The planula larva will undergo metamorphosis to the juvenile form, which will often settle near their parents.
A single colony can grow as large as 10 inches in diameter.

IUCN Status

Not Evaluated

Ecosystem & Cultural Importance

Sea raspberries tend to grow in large clusters that are called strawberry grounds. These provide shelter to many other organisms, including crabs, basket stars, sea anemones, and scallops.
Sea raspberries have a mutually beneficial relationship with an amphipod, a small shrimp-like organism. Tiny juveniles will live on the coral’s surface, eating a bit of the coral and eventually acquiring some of their color, but also help by chasing off nudibranchs trying to feed on the coral.

Arctic, NW Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans. On the West Coast of North America extending down to California.

These soft corals are only found subtidally but one of the locations where they exist is Simpson Reef off of Cape Arago State Park.

These soft corals rely on the presence of zooxanthellae living in the body walls of the polyps to help meet their energy needs. The zooxanthellae are photosynthetic, using the waste products of the polyp and providing it with food, and they also give the coral much of its color.

Some deep sea corals can live over 1,000 years.

There is some discussion about the Pacific species being different from the sea raspberries from the other oceans. In the future, our Pacific group might be reassigned to the genus Alcyonium.

Citations & Other Resources

Arctic Ocean Diversity
Henry, Lea-Anne, Ellen LR Kenchington, and Angela Silvaggio. inchesEffects of mechanical experimental disturbance on aspects of colony responses, reproduction, and regeneration in the cold-water octocoral Gersemia rubiformis.inches Canadian Journal of Zoology 81.10 (2003): 1691-1701.
Oceana
Race Rocks Ecological Reserve
Williams, Gary C. inchesNew taxa and revisionary systematics of alcyonacean octocorals from the Pacific coast of North America (Cnidaria, Anthozoa).inches ZooKeys 283 (2013): 15.

Sea Raspberries

Sea Raspberries

Other Common Names

At the Aquarium

Appearance

Habitat

Diet

Life History

IUCN Status

Ecosystem & Cultural Importance

Citations & Other Resources

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