A review of seascape complexity indices and their performance in coral and rocky reefs

Seascape complexity is an important driver of ecological processes in marine systems. Today, high resolution, multiscale bathymetric data is being collected due to rapid advances in marine technologies and image processing, drastically improving the detailed mapping of the physical structure of the seascape. However, these data are rarely synthesized to create comprehensive complexity estimates, and complexity is still mostly measured using a small set of simple indices. The aims of this study are to: (1) review existing seascape complexity indices and propose innovative indices designed to capture the marine organism perspective, (2) quantify the interrelationships among these complexity indices; (3) test the performance of these indices in explaining fish assemblage structure; and (4) provide R code to easily reproduce the indices. Seascape bottom topography for this study was quantified using digital depth recordings along transects in Mediterranean subtropical rocky reefs and Red Se...