Dataset: Information about sequences of coral, Acropora cervicornis, collected from host colonies at the Mote Marine Laboratory in situ coral nursery in Looe Key, Lower Florida Keys in November and December 2019

Complete methods are published in Williams, et al. (2022) and summarized here. 74 genotypes of Acropora cervicornis in Mote Marine Laboratory's in situ nursery in the Lower Florida Keys were fragmented and collected between November and December 2018. The fragments were flash-frozen using liquid nitrogen and were then immediately stored at -80 degrees Celsius (°C) until further processing. DNA was isolated from the frozen coral fragments (sub-sampled for 4-5 polyps first) using DNeasy PowerSoil Kits (QIAGEN, Germantown, MD, USA) with modifications to the manufacturer's protocol. Sample bacterial communities were determined using 16S rRNA Illumina sequencing on the MiSeq platform. DNA was sent to MR DNA (http://www.mrdnalab.com, Shallowater, TX, USA) for barcoding, amplification, and sequencing. Amplification of the 16S rRNA gene variable region (V4) was conducted using primers 515F and 806R. A polymerase chain reaction was performed using the HotStarTaq Plus Master Mix Kit (QIAGEN, Germantown, MD, USA) and products were checked on a 2% agarose gel to determine the success of amplification and the relative intensity of bands. Samples were pooled and then purified using calibrated Agencourt Ampure XP beads (Beckman Coulter, CA, USA). The pooled DNA library was made using the Illumina TruSeq DNA library preparation protocol. Paired-end sequencing (sequencing read length of 300 base pairs) was performed at MR DNA using a single flow cell on a MiSeq following the manufacturer's guidelines.