Abundance, biomass, and length of seagrass-associated invertebrates in the Virginia coastal lagoons, 2019-2023

These data comprise annual summer estimates of the abundance (counts), biomass (dry mass), and individual lengths of infaunal and epifaunal invertebrates across restored seagrass meadows (eelgrass Zostera marina) of the coastal lagoons of Virginia, USA. Infauna were collected during low tide by hand using cylindrical benthic cores. Epifauna were collected during low tide using cubic weighted throw traps that were sampled with dip nets. Incidentally captured fishes are included in these data. In 2019-2022, 50 sites were sampled, using 3 replicates per sampling method per site. Beginning with 2023 sampling, two additional sites were added that are consistently bare of seagrass (unvegetated seafloor). At sites with patchy areas of seagrass and bare substrate, cores were collected within seagrass only and thus represent seagrass-associated fauna at those sites, rather than a spatially haphazard sample. At the few sites that lack seagrass, cores were collected in bare substrate. All cores were separated by 25 m. Regardless of substrate and seagrass conditions, throw traps were deployed haphazardly and separated by at least 10 m. In the laboratory, invertebrates were first sorted to broad taxonomic groups and later identified to lowest practical taxonomic level and enumerated. Most taxonomic groups were either dried and weighed by taxon or measured as individual length by specimen. Existing data include one table with counts and weights for broad taxonomic groups (2019-2023) and three tables related to lowest practical taxonomic identification (2019-2020), including one for counts and biomass, one for individual lengths, and one for taxonomic information. Data collection began in July 2019 and continues annually in June-July.