Ocean warming is impacting marine biodiversity on a global scale, threatening key ecosystem functioning. Understanding how communities respond in nature is critical for effective management of climate impacts. Using in situ heated settlement panels in New Zealand, our research aimed to assess the response of benthic marine communities to warming without eliminating the influence of other environmental variables. Heated settlement panels allow for controlled manipulation of temperatures within each panel’s boundary layer and can be used to assess the benthic community response at the individual, species, and community level. Community reshuffling was evident in warmed communities (1°C and 2°C above ambient) through a shift toward more warm-tolerant species, reduced competitive complexity, and a shift in the dominant space-occupier compared with ambient panels. Examples of this shift include the increased growth and coverage of the colonial ascidian Lissoclinum perforatum and bryozoan Rhynchozoon zealandicum in +1°C, which were both influential species in the dissimilarity between heated and ambient treatments. In contrast, Colloporina angustipora the spatially dominant species on the ambient panels, presented reduced growth and occurrence under heated treatments. Here we will discuss the shift in community composition in more detail, and the wider implications of warming on such shallow-water communities.