*2.3. Angiosperm Monitoring*

Sod rooting was verified on a monthly basis during the first months of spring 2014 and 2015 in order to replace those that had not taken root. The check was repeated, in summer and autumn. In addition, 100 rhizomes of *Zostera marina* that had been planted at each station were carefully monitored during the year to check the success rate of the single rhizome transplant.

Patch measurements reported in this paper refer to monitoring carried out one year after transplants. The growth of sods and rhizomes was mainly circular, therefore during each survey the average growth of patches was recorded by measuring their diameters and took into account only diameters >20 cm.

### *2.4. Physico-Chemical Parameter Determination*

Before angiosperm transplants, the environmental conditions (physico-chemical parameters and nutrient concentrations) of the water column and surface sediments were monitored once in all the 35 stations. Out of them, eight stations (1, 5, 8, 10, 12, 15, 16, and 17), representative of the environmental conditions of the whole area, were chosen for the monthly detection of the environmental parameters of water, surface sediments, and the settled particulate material (SPM) collected by sedimentation traps placed on the bottom. The ecological status of the eight stations was also determined by sampling all the macrophytes (twice a year), fish fauna (twice a year), and the benthic macrofauna (once a year) according to the procedures used for the application of the macrophyte quality index (MaQI) [15], habitat fish biotic index (HFBI) [16], and multivariate-AZTI marine biotic index (M-AMBI) [17].
