Fitness measures at MA generation 100 under osmotic stress

Fitness of C. elegans mutation accumulation (MA lines) following 100 consecutive generations of spontaneous MA. The MA experiment was conducted under benign laboratory conditions. Fitness was tested under hyperosmotic conditions (200mM salt concentration in NGM plates). Manual measurements of two fitness-related traits, survivorship to adulthood and productivity, in long-term mutation accumulation (MA) lines of C. elegans maintained at population bottlenecks of N = 1, 10 and 100 individuals and the pre-MA ancestral control. Data is presented, where available for 20 N=1 lines (lines 1A-1T), ten N=10 lines (10A-10J), five N=100 lines (100A-100E) and 20 ancestral control lines (C1-C20). Where possible, data was collected for five replicates per experimental line. Productivity was measured by the total number of offspring produced by a virgin hermaphrodite over eight days or until day of expiration prior to eight days. Survivorship to adulthood was measured by isolating ten L1 larvae and determining the fraction that had survived to adulthood at 36 hours after initial sequestration. Survivorship data values range from 0-1, with a 0 value representing 100% mortality prior to reaching adulthood, and a value of 1 representing 100% survivorship.