Incubation experiments were conducted in St. John, US Virgin Islands to investigate the response of reef seawater microbial communities to the mixed exudates released from the coral species Porites astreoides and Gorgonia ventalina.

Incubation experiments were conducted in St. John, US Virgin Islands to investigate the composition of exudates released from different species of benthic organisms, and the response of reef seawater microbial communities to mixed exudates released from different species and to specific metabolites. Exudates were collected from the stony coral Porites astreoides, and the octocoral Gorgonia ventalina after an 8 hour incubation. Reef seawater microbial communities were incubated separately in the presence of exudates from P. astreoides and G. ventalina for 48 hours and samples were collected to monitor changes in microbial abundance via flow cytometry and microbial community composition via 16S rRNA gene sequencing. Complementary Targeted and Untargeted metabolomic data from these incubation experiments is available on the MetaboLights database under accession number MTBLS2855.