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Abstract

In response to ongoing coastal urbanization, it is critical to develop effective methods to improve the biodiversity and ecological sustainability of artificial shorelines. Enhancing the topographic complexity of coastal infrastructure through the mimicry of natural substrata may facilitate the establishment of ecosystem engineering species and associated biogenic habitat formation. However, interactions between ecosystem engineers and their substratum are likely determined by organismal size and resource needs, thus making responses to topography highly scale-dependent. Here, we assessed the topographic properties (rugosity, surface area, micro-surface orientations) that underpin the abundance and distribution of two ecosystem engineers (fucoids, limpets) across six spatial scales (1–500 mm). Furthermore, we assessed the ‘biogenic’ rugosity created by barnacle matrices across fine scales (1–20 mm). Field surveys and 3D scanning, conducted across natural and artificial substrata, showed major effects of rugosity and associated topographic variables on ecosystem engineer assemblages and spatial occupancy, while additional abiotic environmental factors (compass direction, wave exposure) and biotic associations only had weak influences. Natural substrata exhibited ≤67 % higher rugosity than artificial ones. Fucoid-covered patches were predominantly associated with high-rugosity substrata and horizontal micro-surfaces, while homescars of limpets (≥15 mm shell length) predominated on smoother substratum patches. Barnacle-driven rugosity homogenized substrata at scales ≤10 mm. Our findings suggest that scale-dependent rugosity is a key driver of fucoid habitat formation and limpet habitat use, with wider eco-engineering applications for mimicking ecologically impactful topography on coastal infrastructure.

Publication Date

2024-08-15

Publication Title

Science of the Total Environment

Volume

938

ISSN

0048-9697

Acceptance Date

2024-05-24

Deposit Date

2025-07-15

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) and the ARIES Doctoral Training Partnership [grant number NE/S007334/1], as part of a PhD project carried out at the University of Plymouth. Additional funding was provided by the University of Plymouth and CASE partner Arup, UK. The funding sources played no role in the design of the study, nor in its execution, analyses, interpretation of the data or decision to submit results. We thank the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments, that have helped us to improve the quality of the manuscript.

Keywords

Grazing, Greening of grey infrastructure, Nature-based solutions, North-east Atlantic, Settlement, Substratum roughness

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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