Data from: Aging parasites produce offspring with poor fitness prospects

Senescing individuals have poor survival prospects and low fecundity. They
can also produce offspring with reduced survival and reproductive success.
We tested the effect of parental age on the performance of descendants in
the nematode Heligmosomoides polygyrus, an intestinal parasite of rodents.
We found that offspring of senescing worms had reduced within-host
survival and reduced egg shedding over the first month post-infection
compared with offspring produced by young parents. These results suggest
that declining offspring quality is a component of senescence in parasitic
nematodes and might have evolutionary consequences for the optimal
schedule of age-dependent investment into reproductive effort.