Abstract
Restoration is accelerating to reverse global declines of key habitats and recover lost ecosystem functions, particularly in coastal ecosystems. However, there is high uncertainty about the long‐term capacity of restored ecosystems to provide habitat and increase biodiversity and the degree to which these ecosystem services are mediated by spatial and temporal environmental variability. We addressed these gaps by sampling fishes biannually for 5–7 years (2012–2018) at 16 sites inside and outside a rapidly expanding restored seagrass meadow in coastal Virginia (USA). Despite substantial among‐year variation in abundance and species composition, seine catches in restored seagrass beds were consistently larger (6.4 times more fish, p p p = 0.03) than seine catches in adjacent unvegetated areas. Catches were particularly larger during summer than autumn ( p