The rate of reproduction, q, did not differ between lines (LINE: F5,223 = 1.33, p = 0.25), but it was significantly affected by the food concentration (FOOD: F3,223 = 8.80, p < 0.001), such that at lower food concentrations q was lower.
Laboratory procedures have been designed to evaluate the clearance rates (CR) and assimilation efficiencies (AE) of M. galloprovincialis with varying food concentrations, while different diets (i.e., seagrass, phytoplankton, and pellets) have been provided to investigate how differently they reach saturation.
When subjected to different food concentrations, all three tetracycline-treated lines retained their DR response (Figure 4c).
Furthermore, oxygen saturation is >95% that of air at all food concentrations (Table S1), ruling out hypoxia as the cause of lifespan shortening at control food levels.
We analyzed trajectories of wild type worms without food and on a large range of food concentrations (from 0 to 108 bacteria per cm2).
We wondered how the worm would behave at intermediate food concentrations and which concentration of bacteria was necessary to initiate the dwelling behavior.
For body size and egg size measurements, newborn females (age <6 h) were isolated and cultured individually at ad libitum food concentrations, with daily transfers to fresh food suspension.
Thus, as explained above, diet design and an incomplete range of food concentrations could be important factors in explaining why the DR effect was apparently absent from wild mice [15].
Dahomey and wDahomey also exhibited higher reproductive output than the other wild-types at each food concentrations except 0.1×, as well as the maximum reproductive output from all conditions (on 2× food) (Dahomey v wDahomey, p = 0.97; Dahomey or wDahomey v highest reproductive output for each other genotype, p<0.003, Wilcoxon rank-sum test).
The dauer formation phenotype of the NILs was measured at low food concentrations as described above.
Food concentrations were selected to resemble those of the natural habitats of E. affinis.
