Cladocora caespitosa (L.) is a colonial and zooxanthellate scleractinian coral belonging to the family Faviidae. It occurs throughout the Mediterranean and can be locally abundant (Zibrowius, 1980). [...] Where abundant, C. caespitosa occurs in two ways, either as: 1) a great number of distinct subspherical colonies (10 to 30 cm in diameter); or 2) large formations reaching some decimetres in height and covering several square meters in surface area. For the latter type of occurrence, Peirano et al. (1998) proposed the term "bank", for the former they preferred the rather general and inclusive term "bed". Both types of occurrence are relatively common in the coastal region around La Spezia. They are presently under study with the following goals: 1) to quantify the importance of the species as a builder during the present time; 2) to understand the influence of major environmental factors upon the build-ups accretion; 3) to correlate the growth of the species with climatic data.