Data from: "Dune establishment drivers on the beach: narrowing down the window of opportunity".

We combined an extensive field mapping campaign with an establishment experiment carried out at four different beaches in the Netherlands. During the mapping campaign, we mapped the occurrence of grass seedlings and adult grasses on Midsland (Terschelling) and the Sand Engine.

In the establishment experiment we introduced seeds and rhizome pieces from Ammophila arenaria (marram grass) and Elytrigia juncea (sand couch) on Midsland, Formerum, Oosterend and the Sand Engine. We followed their establishment success by determining the number of emerged shoots relative to the introduced plant material. We also measured soil moisture, salinity and the change in beach bed level.