Acetylene (C2H2) is a molecule rarely found in nature, with few known natural sources, but acetylenotrophic microorganisms can use acetylene as their primary carbon and energy source. As of 2018 there were 15 known strains of aerobic and anaerobic acetylenotrophs, however we hypothesized that there may be yet unrecognized diversity of acetylenotrophs in nature. In this study, we expanded this diversity by isolating an aerobic acetylenotroph, Bradyrhizobium sp. strain I71, from trichloroethene (TCE)-contaminated soils undergoing bioremediation. TCE-contaminated soils from the NASA Ames Research Center in California were used to establish soil microcosms with acetylene as the primary carbon substrate and acetylene uptake was tracked over time and reported in T1_soil_microcosm_v2.0.csv. DNA was extracted from soil microcosm samples for microbial community analysis based on 16S rRNA gene sequencing; the resulting operational taxonomic units are presented in T2_soil_OTU_v2.0.csv. Bradyrhizobium sp. strain I71 was isolated from the soil microcosms and acetylene uptake and cell growth data for the isolate over time are shown in T3_soil_isolate_v2.0.csv. Nitrogen fixation assays for the pure culture of Bradyrhizobium sp. strain I71 are reported in T4_N2_fixation_v2.0.csv. Acetylene concentrations and cell densities from acetylenotrophic and heterotrophic growth assays for Bradyrhizobium sp. strain I71 are reported in T5_GrowthCurve_v2.0.csv