Ecological effects of habitat complexity vary with intertidal elevation: Implications for seawall eco-engineering

Coastal urbanisation is replacing natural shoreline habitats with built structures, such as seawalls. Built structures often lack complex habitat features that provide protective and cool microhabitats for biodiversity. We conducted field experiments to assess whether the addition (or eco-engineering) of complex habitat panels to seawalls influenced benthic community assemblages across the intertidal range, at panel and site scales. We expected: (i) effects of habitat complexity to vary with tidal elevation, reflecting spatial variation in the identity and magnitude of stressors from which habitat complexity provides protection; (ii) positive effects of complexity on functional groups of organisms with exposed soft tissues that make them prone to desiccation and predation, and especially on the high shore where temperature and desiccation is greatest, and (iii) increases in the upper vertical limit of key taxa inhabiting eco-engineered seawalls to match reference reefs, and exceed contr..., , # Data from: Ecological effects of habitat complexity vary with intertidal elevation: Implications for seawall eco-engineering

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.9p8cz8wtr](10.5061/dryad.9p8cz8wtr)

## Description of the data and file structure

Biodiversity surveys of intertidal seawalls with eco-engineered habitat panels, control (unmodified seawalls) and reference rocky reefs. 

### Files and variables

#### File: Vozzo\_et\_al.\_Vertical\_Zonation\_Data.xlsx

**Description:** File containing 3 tabs of different surveys. Surveys at the Site level, Panel level, and assessing the maximum vertical extent of taxa. 

\".\" = n/a or no data on all spreadsheets. 

##### Variables

* Site level
* Location: location of site. Balls head = BH (RS1); Cremorne Point = CP (RS2); Milsons Point = MP (CON1, CON2 and FULL). 
* Int = intervention type. reference reef = reef; control seawall = con; eco-engineered seawall = eco
* Sites: Reference Reefs (RS1 and RS2): Natural rocky shores of similar aspect ...,