Abundance of denitrifying bacteria in Louisiana salt marshes two years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (July 2012)

This dataset contains values for abundance denitrifying bacteria collected from 13 marshes in Terrebonne Bay (TB), western Barataria Bay (WB), and eastern Barataria Bay (EB), LA. In TB and EB we sampled two oiled marshes and two unoiled marshes, and in WB we sampled three oiled marshes and two unoiled marshes. At each marsh, we collected 5-cm deep soil cores along a 20-m transect from the marsh edge and collecting soil samples every 5 m. Each sample was analyzed for abundance of denitrifying bacteria by targeting the nitrite reductase gene (nirS). Marshes were sampled in July 2012.