DOI: 10.5061/dryad.brv15dvmk
title: Data from: Exploring the role of microbiota in mediating sexually dimorphic infection outcomes in mealworm beetles

description: Sexually dimorphic responses to pathogenic infections in animals may stem
 from sex-specific differences in their life history and immune investment.
 Recent evidence highlights that such sex-specific variations in immune
 responses can also be critically regulated by microbiota. However, direct
 experiments to test how microbiota jointly impacts sex-specific immunity
 and vulnerability to pathogens are still limited. To this end, we used
 Tenebrio molitor beetles to first establish that sexes appear to differ in
 their microbiota composition and infection responses. Females were more
 vulnerable to bacterial infections and carried a higher bacterial load
 than males. When we depleted the microbiota, only females improved their
 post-infection survival, leading to a decrease in the level of sex
 specific divergence in infection outcomes. Males, on the other hand,
 remained unaffected. Microbiota reconstitution (via feeding on faecal
 matter) of microbiota-depleted females increased their susceptibility to
 infection again, restoring the strong sexual dimorphism. We thus found a
 potential association between microbiota and infection responses. We also
 found reduced expression of an antimicrobial peptide tenecin 1 in females,
 which could be associated with their higher infection susceptibility, but
 such immune gene-vs-phenotypic associations were not consistent across
 microbiota manipulations. Immune strategies that are required to mediate
 the plausible links between microbiota and infection response might thus
 vary with microbiota manipulations, warranting future investigations.
description: # Data from: Role of microbiota in mediating sexually dimorphic infection
 outcomes in mealworm beetles Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.brv15dvmk](10.5061/dryad.brv15dvmk) ## Description of the
 data and file structure We used *Tenebrio molitor* beetles for our
 experimental assays. We measured two phenotypic responses (survival
 post-infection and bacterial load within host), two immune parameters
 (gene expression and phenoloxidase response), and microbiota profiling.
 ### Files and variables #### File: Dataset_repository.xlsx
 **Description:** Each datasheet is labelled corresponding to the figure
 number in the main manuscript or supplementary information ##### Variables
 * For the survival data, we have one response variables-lifespan (in
 hours) * For the bacterial load data, we have one response variable-
 bacterial load * For the gene expression data, we have one response
 variable- fold change * For the phenoloxidase data, we have one response
 variable-slope value * For the microbiota profiling, we have one response
 variable-abundance Keys used- for the bacterial load data sets : ms denote
 mother stock ## Code/software We have uploaded the data as an excel sheet.
 There is no need of any other software to access those files.  ## Access
 information All the data reported in the manuscript has been generated by
 the authors of this paper. No external data source was used for any of the
 experiments.