Drosophila melanogaster wounding in the wild

Wounding occurs across multicellular organisms. Wounds can affect host mobility and reproduction, with ecological consequences for competitive interactions and predator-prey dynamics. Wounds are also entry points for pathogens. An immune response is activated upon injury, resulting in the deposition of the brown-black pigment melanin in insects. Despite the abundance of immunity studies in the lab and the potential ecological and evolutionary implications of wounding, the prevalence of wounding in wild-collected insects is rarely systematically explored. We investigated the prevalence and potential causes of wounds in wild-collected Drosophilidae flies. We found that 31% of Drosophila melanogaster were wounded or damaged. The abdomen was the most frequently wounded body part, and females were more likely to have melanised patches on the ventral abdomen, compared to males. Encapsulated parasitoid egg frequency was approximately ten percent, and just under one percent of Drosophilidae spe..., The data were obtained from wild-collected flies. Collections were made in three collection periods, from three sites in Berlin and Brandenburg, Germany. For full details see the methods described in Subasi, Grabe, Kaltenpoth, Rolff & Armitage. How frequently are insects wounded in the wild? A case study using Drosophila melanogaster., , # Title of Dataset

# Drosophila melanogaster wounding in the wild

The dataset consists of two data files, one containing information on wounding on individual wild-collected Drosophila melanogaster adult flies, the other file contains information on mites that were found on individual wild-collected Drosophilidae flies.

## Description of the data and file structure

Note that in the csv files and names, the following abbreviations are used:

Combined damage HTLA : Combined damage found on the head, thorax, legs and abdomen

**1. File List:**

damage.R The R code required to process the data in the csv files and produce the data figures for the study

damage_data.csv Wounding found on individual wild-collected flies

mite.csv Mite infestations on individual wild-collected flies

mites_prob.csv Number of mite infestation on wild-collected flies across sex, season and sites

**2. Relationship between files**, if important: The data that is presented i...