Little Pleasant Bay is a sheltered coastal lagoon in which one species, Zostera marina (eelgrass) has persisted. It is protected from string wind and wave energy and the shallowest plants remain largely subtidal at low tide. Despite the relative protection afforded by the embayment, high-resolution monitoring reveals considerable temporal variability in this system as well, associated with both natural and anthropogenic disturbances at multiple scales. Since monitoring began in 2003, monitoring results reveal periods of decline followed by recovery.