Fish Counts and Lengths in South Bay and Hog Island Bay, Virginia 2012-2018

To study how seagrass restoration affects coastal fish communities over time, we sampled fishes at each site once or twice per year with beach seines (7.6 m wide × 1.8 m tall; 1.5 m deep pocket with 6.4 mm mesh) hauled along 25-m transects in the summer (May or June) and autumn (September or October) from 2012 through 2018. Researchers ceased sampling at the 4 initially unvegetated sites in South Bay after 2015, when these sites were colonized by seagrass, although seining occurred once more at these sites during the autumn of 2017. During each sampling event, we counted, measured (total length), and identified fish to the lowest possible taxon in the field prior to release. All seine hauls occurred during the day and within 3 hours of low tide for logistical reasons (n = 204).
Due to methodological changes, after 2018 surveys are recorded in a different dataset VCR22364 "Abundance and Size of Seagrass-Associated Fishes in the Virginia Coastal Lagoons, 2019-xxxx" https://doi.org/10.6073/pasta/400c84b859e81e9a1e5212bccb37b759.