Hello,

I recently have started in a new position analyzing seagrass and other submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) within an aquatic preserve. Our data is collected using a modified Braun-Blanquet (BB) score where if a species is present in our quadrat we give it a score of1 (less than 5%), 2 (5-25%), 3 (25-50%), 4 (50-75%), and 5 (75-100%). Historically they had been analyzing this data using average BB scores and percent occurrence. In each system we collect four quadrats from 25 sites and then the system as a whole is analyzed. I have not used BB methods before so I was looking into ways to analyze and learned basically that averaging these scores is not a good method for analyzing BB scores. Does anyone have any suggestions or insight on the best way to analyze this data? I've been reading from many different sources that all suggest different methods. I was wondering if anyone can help point me in the right direction for starting out, we have large datasets with 5 species of seagrasses and multiple species of algae. Any advice or suggested reading is highly appreciated.

Thank you