Salamander skin microbiome sample metadata: Variation in amphibian skin microbes

These data are associated with a study that explores variation in microbial communities on western tiger salamander skin (Ambystoma mavortium) through space, time, and across life history stages. Lake water and lake substrate microbiome samples were collected to observe microbial taxa which were disproportionately abundant between salamander skin and the environment. Microbiome samples were collected at two lakes during the summer and fall of 2018, and sampling occurred at each lake every other week. During each sampling event, water quality data were collected at four or five locations within the lake and are associated with microbiome samples collected in the lake's respective regions. For each sample, bacterial and fungal communities were examined through metabarcoding of the 16S and ITS metabarcoding regions, respectively, using Illumina next-generation sequencing. The dataset includes negative control samples to aid in detecting contamination, and the dataset includes mock community samples to aid in validating our bioinformatics methods. Each sample received spike-ins of cross-contamination oligos and synthetic genes to observe cross-contamination during library preparation and to allow for the estimation of absolute microbial abundances, respectively. This dataset includes spatiotemporal, ontogenetic, morphometric, and water quality metadata for microbiome samples along with essential information for processing the DNA sequence data.