Juvenile coral assemblages mirror surviving adult communities after mass bleaching and mortality.

This dataset contains juvenile and adult scleractinian coral demographic observations collected across 14 lagoonal patch reef sites at One Tree Island, southern Great Barrier Reef, Australia, in July 2025, following the 2024 marine heatwave. The dataset contains 193 observations across 14 transects, including site identifiers, taxonomic classifications, colony abundance by size class and life-history strategy assignments where available. Missing abundance entries were standardised to zero. Original observation records were retained without aggregating repeated taxonomic entries within transects. Accompanying R scripts reproduce the statistical analyses and figures associated with the study, including adult–juvenile abundance relationships, taxonomic differences in juvenile density, life-history strategy comparisons and multivariate community composition analyses. Associated manuscript: Doherty et al., Juvenile coral assemblages reflect adult coral composition after a marine heatwave on the Great Barrier Reef.