We review the progress made in the emerging field of coastal seascape ecology, i.e. the application of landscape ecology concepts and techniques to the coastal marine environment. Since the early 1990s, the landscape ecology approach has been applied in several coastal subtidal and intertidal biogenic habitats across a range of spatial scales. Emerging evidence indicates that animals in these seascapes respond to the structure of patches and patch mosaics in different ways and at different spatial scales, yet we still know very little about the ecological significance of these relationships and the consequences of change in seascape patterning for ecosystem functioning and overall biodiversity. Ecological interactions that occur within patches and among different types of patches (or seascapes) are likely to be critically important in maintaining primary and secondary production, trophic transfer, biodiversity, coastal protection, and supporting a wealth of ecosystem goods and services. We review faunal responses to patch and seascape structure, including effects of fragmentation on 5 focal habitats: seagrass meadows, salt marshes, coral reefs, mangrove forests, and oyster reefs. Extrapolating and generalizing spatial relationships between ecological patterns and processes across scales remains a significant challenge, and we show that there are major gaps in our understanding of these relationships. Filling these gaps will be crucial for managing and responding to an inevitably changing coastal environment. We show that critical ecological thresholds exist in the structural patterning of biogenic ecosystems that, when exceeded, cause abrupt shifts in the distribution and abundance of organisms. A better understanding of faunal-seascape relationships, including the identifications of threshold effects, is urgently needed to support the development of more effective and holistic management actions in restoration, site prioritization, and forecasting the impacts of environmental change.

Two of the major limitations to effective management of coral reef ecosystems are a lack of information on the spatial distribution of marine species and a paucity of data on the interacting environmental variables that drive distributional patterns. Advances in marine remote sensing, together with the novel integration of landscape ecology and advanced niche modelling techniques provide an unprecedented opportunity to reliably model and map marine species distributions across many kilometres of coral reef ecosystems. We developed a multi-scale approach using three-dimensional seafloor morphology and across-shelf location to predict spatial distributions for five common Caribbean fish species. Seascape topography was quantified from high resolution bathymetry at five spatial scales (5–300 m radii) surrounding fish survey sites. Model performance and map accuracy was assessed for two high performing machine-learning algorithms: Boosted Regression Trees (BRT) and Maximum Entropy Species Distribution Modelling (MaxEnt). The three most important predictors were geographical location across the shelf, followed by a measure of topographic complexity. Predictor contribution differed among species, yet rarely changed across spatial scales. BRT provided ‘outstanding’ model predictions (AUC = >0.9) for three of five fish species. MaxEnt provided ‘outstanding’ model predictions for two of five species, with the remaining three models considered ‘excellent’ (AUC = 0.8–0.9). In contrast, MaxEnt spatial predictions were markedly more accurate (92% map accuracy) than BRT (68% map accuracy). We demonstrate that reliable spatial predictions for a range of key fish species can be achieved by modelling the interaction between the geographical location across the shelf and the topographic heterogeneity of seafloor structure. This multi-scale, analytic approach is an important new cost-effective tool to accurately delineate essential fish habitat and support conservation prioritization in marine protected area design, zoning in marine spatial planning, and ecosystem-based fisheries management.

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