Dataset: Size of B. neritina colonies with and without symbiont grown at different temperatures

B. neritina colonies were collected by hand off the sides of floating docks around Morehead City, NC, and Oyster, VA. Larvae from individual colonies were collected and settled into 10 mL of filtered seawater with (treated) or without (control) 100 ug/mL of gentamicin as described in Lopanik et al. 2004. Larvae were allowed to settle overnight. The control and treated seawater was changed the next morning for the next 3 days. The plates were transported to Georgia Tech where they were placed in 2.5 gallon tanks with artificial seawater maintained in environmental chambers at 16°C and 22°C either with or without 2 invertebrate predators (tunicates). They were fed ad libitum an artificial diet of the phytoplankton Rhodomonas lens for approximately three months. After a 5 week period, the size of the colonies was measured by counting the number of zooids in each colony. Samples of larvae, juvenile and the grown colonies were placed in RNAlater for symbiont quantification analysis by quantitative PCR. After 13 and 25 weeks, the size of the colonies was measured by counting the number of bifurcations, and colonies were placed into RNAlater for symbiont quantification. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS Statistics 24.