DOI: 10.5061/dryad.t0p4v
title: Data from: Maternal pathogen exposure causes diet- and pathogen-specific transgenerational costs

description: Transgenerational effects, whereby the environment experienced by a parent
 leads to an altered offspring phenotype, have now been described in a
 variety of taxa. In invertebrates, much of the research on these effects
 has concentrated on the role of parental exposure to pathogens or immune
 elicitors in determining offspring immune investment or disease
 resistance. To date, however, studies of transgenerational effects in
 invertebrates have generally been restricted to single infections or
 immune elicitors in ideal laboratory environments. Animals in field
 situations will commonly experience sub-optimal environments and
 co-infection by multiple species of parasites and pathogens, leading to
 increased relative costs of immune investment and changing fitness
 benefits from offspring responses to the parental environment. Here we
 investigate a more ecologically realistic scenario involving both multiple
 infections and resource limitation, using the Indian meal moth Plodia
 interpunctella as a model host, challenged with the entomopathogenic
 bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis and fungus Beauveria bassiana. Mothers
 were exposed to low doses of one or both pathogens, or a control.
 Offspring from each family were reared on either good- or poor-quality
 food and then exposed to one or both pathogens. Maternal exposure to
 pathogens led to reduced pathogen resistance in offspring, depending on
 the combination of maternal and offspring pathogen-specific infections and
 resource limitation in the offspring generation. Much research to date has
 focussed on trans-generational immune priming, in which parental exposure
 to pathogens or immune elicitors leads to upregulated immune reactivity in
 their offspring. The lack of any such effects in our system suggests that
 the production of less resistant offspring following parental exposure to
 pathogens might be an important alternative, driven by costs of resistance
 rather than adaptive benefits.
description: Offspring
 outcomesBlock refers to
 experimental block. Weight refers to weight at offspring infection. Family
 refers to family identity. Date mated refers to the date the mother was
 mated. Maternal egg refers to how many eggs the mother laid. Gender refers
 to the gender of the offspring. Date infected refers to the date of
 infection of the offspring (coded as a factor). Food refers to the diet
 quality of the offspring where "g" = good, 10:1:1 wheat bran to
 brewers' yeast to glycerol and "b" = bad 20:1:1 ratio.
 "infected" refers to the infection status of the offspring where
 "bt" = infected with LD33 Bt, "fu" = infected with
 LD33 Bb, "co" = coinfection with both pathogens. Trt refers to
 maternal treatment where "nai" = naive only handling treatment,
 "cdip" = control dip treatment in distilled water,
 "cdrop" = fed a control droplet of sugar water and food dye,
 "fungi" = LD05 dose of Bb, "btp" = LD05 dose of Bt,
 "cop" = coinfection with both pathogens. adstatus refers to
 whether the offspring outcome is either "a" = alive or
 "d" = dead. bt refers to the infection status of the mother with
 regard to bt, where "bt" = infected with either Bt or
 coinfection, and "nbt" = infected with fungus or any of the
 control treatments. fu refers to the infection status of the mother with
 regard to Bb where "fu" = infected with either Bb or
 coinfection, and "nfu" = infected with Bt or any of the control
 treatments.status
 modified_dryad.xlsxMaternal longevity after
 infection"date.laid"
 refers to date that the eggs were laid to create the parental generation.
 "block" refers to experimental block. "trt" referst to
 the treatment given to the maternal larva where "n" = naive
 handling only, "cdrop" = fed a control drop of sugar water and
 food dye, "cdip" = control dipped in distilled water,
 "fungi" = infected with a LD05 dose of Bb, "bt" =
 infected with a LD05 dose of Bt, "co" = coinfected with both
 pathogens. "family" = unique family identifier.
 "date.eclosed" = date the mother eclosed after pupating.
 "mated" = was the mother mated? Sometimes there were not enough
 males eclosing to mate all of the available females. "egg48" =
 number of eggs laid after 48 hours. "larvaldeath" = did the
 animal die as a larvae where "0" = dead and "1" =
 alive. "no.eclose" = animal did not eclose.
 "truncated" = a combination of larvaldeath and no.eclose.
 "date.infected" = date the maternal larva was
 infected.egg counts coinfection MODIFIED
 complete_dryad.xlsx