Data and code for: A healthy but depleted herd: predators decrease prey disease and density

The healthy herds hypothesis proposes that predators can reduce parasite prevalence and thereby increase density of their prey. However, evidence for such predator-driven reductions in prevalence in prey remains mixed. Furthermore, even less evidence supports increases in prey density during epidemics. Here, we used a planktonic predator-prey-parasite system to experimentally test the healthy herds hypothesis. We manipulated density of a predator (the phantom midge, Chaoborus punctipennis) and parasitism (the virulent fungus Metschnikowia bicuspidata) in experimental assemblages. Because we know natural populations of the prey (Daphnia dentifera) vary in susceptibility to both predator and parasite, we stocked experimental populations with nine genotypes spanning a broad range of susceptibility to both enemies. Predation significantly reduced infection prevalence, eliminating infection at the highest predation level. However, lower parasitism did not increase densities of prey; instead,..., There are two components to this study:
Empirical work: The data was collected during an experiment run in Summer 2019. It has been processed as noted in the Rmd and README files. 
Theoretical work: These analyses were done in 2021 and 2022. More information is in the associated README file., The empirical work has all datasets in csv files and is analyzed in R/RStudio.
The theoretical work is in Matlab.