Dataset: NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) accession numbers for fastq sequence files of 16S amplicons from a longitudinal study of SCTLD at St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands from 2020 to 2024

Samples were collected on day-trips aboard a University of the Virgin Islands powerboat in the U.S. Virgin Islands from July 2020 through March 2024. On SCUBA, 60 milliliters (mL) of seawater was collected 2-5 centimeters (cm) above the colony surface, then the coral fragment was collected; upon surfacing, samples were put on ice. Seawater was passed through 0.2-micrometer (µm) filters, and the tissue was removed from the skeleton using PBS solution and an airbrush. DNA was extracted from the coral tissue, seawater filters, and processing controls using the Qiagen DNeasy PowerBiofilm Kit. PCR was used to amplify the V4 region of the small subunit rRNA gene of bacteria and archaea using primers 515FY and 806RB with standard barcodes. To purify the PCR product from seawater, the Qiagen PCR Purification Kit was used. Purification of PCR products from coral tissue proceeded by running products in a 1.5% agarose gel and excising bands of 450 bp. Gel excisions were purified using the Qiagen Gel Extraction Kit. PCR products were diluted to 1 nanogram per microliter (ng/μL) and sequenced on an Illumina MiSeq (paired reads, 2x250 nt) at the University of Georgia's Georgia Genomics and Bioinformatics Core and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Roy J. Carver Biotechnology Center.