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

These data comprise annual summer estimates of the abundance (counts) and biomass (dry mass) of infaunal and epifaunal invertebrates across restored seagrass meadows of the Virginia coastal lagoons. Invertebrates are identified to lowest practical taxonomic level and separated into functional/taxonomic groups: worms, isopods, amphipods, bivalves, crabs, gastropods, and shrimps. Infauna were collected by hand using cylindrical benthic cores. Epifauna were collected using rectangular weighted throw traps that were sampled with 500-micron dip nets (30 dips per trap). Sampling was conducted in July at 50 sites using 3 replicates per sampling method per site. At sites with patchy areas of seagrass and bare substrate, cores were collected within seagrass only. At the few sites that lack seagrass, cores were collected in bare substrate. All cores were separated by 50 m. Regardless of substrate conditions, throw traps were deployed haphazardly and separated by at least 10 m. Data collection began in July 2019 and continues annually.