Data from: Experimental evolution of infectious behaviour in a facultative ectoparasite ...

• Main Authors: Durkin, Emily S., Luong, Lien T.
• Format: Dataset
• Language: English
• Published: Dryad 2017
• Subjects: Macrocheles muscaedomesticae; evolution of parasitism; realized heritability; Artificial selection; infectivity; Drosophila hydei; Stepping Stones; Mite
• Online Access: https://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.9p0nm; https://datadryad.org/stash/dataset/doi:10.5061/dryad.9p0nm

Parasitic lifestyles have evolved many times in animals, but how such life-history strategies evolved from free-living ancestors remains a great puzzle. Transitional symbiotic strategies, such as facultative parasitism, are hypothesized evolutionary stepping-stones towards obligate parasitism. However, to consider this hypothesis, heritable genetic variation in infectious behaviour of transitional symbiotic strategies must exist. In this study, we experimentally evolved infectivity and estimated the additive genetic variation in a facultative parasite. We performed artificial selection experiments in which we selected for either increased or decreased propensity to infect in a facultatively parasitic mite (Macrocheles muscaedomesticae). Here, infectiousness was expressed in terms of mite attachment to a host (Drosophila hydei) and modeled as a threshold trait. Mites responded positively to selection for increased infectivity; realized heritability of infectious behaviour was significantly different from zero ... : Raw data from selection, assay, population density and post-selection experimentsThe first three tabs of the excel file provide the raw data from selection experiment A and include selection, assay and population density data. The last two tabs provide the raw data from selection experiment B and include selection and post-selection data.JEB Selection Data.xlsx ...