[2] Alcyonium coralloides is plentiful in the Mediterranean Sea but less common on the Atlantic coast of Western Europe and in the English Channel.

In the Atlantic Ocean, colonies are small and grow directly on vertical rock faces, under overhangs and in caves.

The polyps spread their pinnate tentacles wide and passively gather zooplankton and organic particles from the water flowing past.

Larvae have been observed in the gastric cavity of females in May and in the open water in June, being ready to settle in early summer, a time at which the host corals are most vulnerable because of their own breeding activities.

[4] In the Atlantic, reproduction is mainly by parthenogenesis, with embryos being brooded inside the gastric cavity of their parent, to be liberated as juveniles with limited dispersal ability.

This may explain the lack of variability and the rather patchy distribution of this soft coral in the Atlantic as compared to its abundance in the western Mediterranean.