Bivalve facilitation mediates seagrass recovery from physical disturbance in a temperate estuary

This dataset describes two experiments done in seagrass beds in Back Sound, North Carolina. Experiment 1 was located in a large contiguous shallow seagrass bed near Cape Lookout, NC (34.668121, -76.509455) and Experiment 2 was located in the Rachel Carson Estuarine Reserve, Beaufort, NC (34.698799, -76.595439). Experiment 1 was a clam-addition/control experiment, and 2018/2019 summer growth rates, 2018/2019 summer biomass cores, and 2018/2019 epiphytic load on Zostera marina and Halodule wrightii were sampled. Experiment 2 was a two-factor experiment looking at clam-addition and excavation and 2019 summer growth rates, 2019/2020 summer biomass cores, and 2019/2020 recolonization and percent cover were sampled. To document the spatial characteristics of the experimental areas, we mapped the extent of the contiguous seagrass bed and the coordinates of the experimental plots and subplots with a Trimble R10 Integrated GNSS system in May 2018, June 2018, and July 2019 for Experiment 1 and April 2019 and July 2019 for Experiment 2 in the NAD83 coordinate system.