Investment in regeneration versus asexual reproduction is resource-dependent in a freshwater annelid

The post-embryonic developmental processes of regeneration and asexual agametic reproduction are widespread and often co-occur in animals. These traits are of great ecological significance, but their physiological dynamics within species are not well understood. In naid annelids, regeneration and asexual reproduction via fission are evolutionarily related and mechanistically similar yet distinct, making these animals useful systems in which to study resource allocation strategies between the two processes.
How asexual reproductive investment varies as a function of somatic investment demands was tested in the naid Pristina leidyi by repeatedly amputating the heads of individual worms, allowing regeneration to proceed, and measuring reproductive output over time. Treatments were replicated under high and low food levels to determine to what extent the investment dynamic between regeneration and fission is affected by the resource pool.
Reproductive output was affected by injury and rege..., Animal culture and material
The use of animals in this study did not require approval from an ethical committee. Established cultures of P. leidyi (see Bely & Wray, 2001) were cultured at room temperature (~23 ⁰C) in glass bowls (12 cm diameter) filled with ~150 ml of artificial spring water (1% artificial seawater) (ASpW). Strips of brown paper towels were provided as substrate. Cultures were fed once weekly with 10 mg powdered Spirulina. Half-volume water changes were administered weekly.
To generate experimental animals, 109 healthy-looking worms of similar size were pulled from a culture that had been established 3 weeks prior, to ensure that the culture was undergoing active growth. These worms were moved to individual wells of 24-well plates filled with 1.5 mL ASpW. Each individual worm was fed once weekly with 0.15 mg Spirulina. Individuals were monitored daily for fission (zooid release). P. leidyi typically forms fission zones (FZ) at approximately two-thirds the length of ..., , # **Investment in regeneration versus asexual reproduction is resource-dependent in a freshwater annelid**

This dataset contains all of the data and code used to perform the analyses in the present article. These were used collectively to determine how food availability and the frequency of anterior amputation and regeneration affect reproductive investment in the worm *Pristina leidyi*. There are four spreadsheets and eight R scripts contained in this dataset.

**Description of the data and file structure**

There are four spreadsheets containing data:

1.     Injury-Data-Primary.xlsx

2.     Mortality.csv

3.     Offspring-Sizes.xlsx

4.     Extra-Regen-Test.xlsx

(1) contains all of the data used in calculations of fecundity for F0 worms and consists of several sheets. The first sheet contains data related to F0 worm experimental treatments and offspring production. Every row represents one worm. Reported for each worm in the first several columns is a unique identifier code (A or...