Bacterial 16S rRNA sequences of deep-sea corals in the Gulf of Mexico, 2009-10-29 to 2019-08-23

As part of a larger study to examine the effect of natural seepage on deep-sea corals, the effect of oil on the microbial community associated with corals was investigated. We first conducted a large-scale study to characterize the microbes associated with deep-sea corals: 421 coral colonies belonging to 42 coral morphospecies, 3 major coral taxa (Scleractinia [stony corals], Antipatharia [black corals], Alcyonacea [soft corals, gorgonians, sea whips, etc]) and zoanthid gold corals were processed. The surrounding water and sediment were sampled to compare the microbes associated with corals to microbial communities in their surroundings. These samples were collected from 36 locations, 24 deep-sea sites in the Gulf of Mexico (250-2,224m), 7 mesophotic sites in the Gulf of Mexico (60-100m), and 5 shallow-water sites in the Florida Keys and Curacao (0-20m). This dataset supports the publication: Vohsen, Samuel A., Kaitlin E. Anderson, Andrea M. Gade, Harald R. Gruber-Vodicka, Richard P. Dannenberg, Eslam O. Osman, Nicole Dubilier, Charles R. Fisher, and Iliana B. Baums. 2020. Deep-sea corals provide new insight into the ecology, evolution, and the role of plastids in widespread apicomplexan symbionts of anthozoans. Microbiome, 8(34). doi:10.1186/s40168-020-00798-w