Dataset: Vegetative and flowering density of Zostera marina determined from from weekly-biweekly surveys in shallow and deep zones at two sites in Massachusetts, USA in 2019

We conducted eleven surveys of two different eelgrass beds in Massachusetts every 1-2 weeks starting June 4th and ending August 27th during the summer of 2019. The two sites were West Beach in Beverly (N 42.55921, W 70.80578) and Curlew Beach in Nahant (N 42.42009, W 70.91553). Each survey consisted of a 20 m transect being laid out parallel to shore in both the shallow and deep zone. These zones were defined as being along the respective edges of the eelgrass beds. The exact depths of the zones varied from bed to bed.

During each survey we counted the number of both flowering and vegetative shoots in a 0.25 m^2 quadrat every 2 meters along the transect. If a quadrat had no shoots, an additional quadrat was added at the end of the transect. A few weeks we sampled more than 10 quadrats per depth.