Experimental evolution reveals physiological and ecological costs of plant defence suppression in herbivores

The data and scripts presented here were used to assess whether suppression of plant defences entails physiological and/or ecological costs for herbivores. To this aim, we performed 26 generations of experimental evolution of <i>Tetranychus evansi</i> (herbivorous spider mites species that suppresses tomato plant defences) populations on (a) tomato plants where induced defences are impaired (<i>def-1</i> plants) or on wild-type tomato plants in (b) absence or (c) presence of competitors. Then, we measured the suppression levels of each evolved population and also determined wether the putative costs were expressed on fecundity of evolved populations.We provide 6 files:<b>Three .Rmd files:</b> Script_suppression_levels_herbivore, Script_suppression_levels_plant and Script_performance_evolved_populations<b>Three .csv files:</b> Dataset_suppression_levels_herbivore, Dataset_suppression_levels_plant and Dataset_performance_evolved_populations<br>Description of .Rmd files content:<b>Script_suppression_levels_herbivore</b>: this files contains the script used for data visualisation and statistical analysis for the "Plant defence suppression in mites from the experimental evolution" experiment. <b>Script_suppression_levels_plant:</b> this files contains the script used for data visualisation and statistical analysis for the "Expression of plant defence genes triggered by the evolved populations" experiment. <b>Script</b><b>_</b><b>performance_evolved_populations</b><b>:</b> this files contains the script used for data visualisation and statistical analysis for the "Performance of evolved populations" experiment.Description of .csv files content:<b>Dataset_suppression_levels_herbivore:</b> this files contains the raw data of the "Plant defence suppression in mites from the experimental evolution" experiment. Table headers and respective levels are explained below:Treatment: experimental population (1CM = WT regime; 2CM = WT-comp regime and 1Def=Def-1 regime) and control (Clean=Uninfested) treatment tested;Generation: generations of experimental evolution used to perform the experiment (16^th , 18^th and 26^th generation);Replicate: experimental evolution replicate, i.e., population replicate (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. NAs correspond to control treatments); Block: day in which eggs were counted (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd);Falcon: falcon in which each leaf was placed (= biological replicate);Females_installed: number of <i>T. evansi</i> inbred line females installed on each leaflet;Females_alive: number of <i>T. evansi</i> inbred line females found alive on each leaflet after 2 days of infestation;Females_average: average number of females installed, i.e., sum of number of females installed on leaves and number of females alive dived by two;Eggs: total number of eggs laid by <i>T. evansi</i> inbred line after two days of infestation;Eggs_per_female: number of eggs laid per female by <i>T. evansi</i> inbred line, i.e., total number of eggs divided by number of alive females;Comments: any observations made in each replicate.<b>Dataset_suppression_levels_herbivore:</b> this files contains the raw data of the "Expression of plant defence genes triggered by the evolved populations" experiment. Table headers and respective levels are explained below:Treatment: experimental population (1CM = WT regime; 2CM = WT-comp regime and 1Def=Def-1 regime) and control (Clean=Uninfested, Tu Santpoort=benchmark control for induction and Te Vicosa=benchmark control for suppression) treatments tested;Block: day in which leaf discs were collected for RNA extraction (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd);EE_replicate_R: experimental evolution replicate, i.e., population replicate (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. NAs correspond to control treatments);Assay_replicate: distinct samples used for analysis, i.e., biological replicates; Technical_replicate: number of times each sample was analysed on RT-qPCR plate;Actin: the quantification cycle (C_q), i.e., the cycle number at which the fluorescence first rises above the threshold level, of actin gene (reference housekeeping gene);PI-IIc: the Cq of Proteinase inhibitor IIc gene;PPO-D: the Cq of Polyphenol oxidase-D gene.<b>Dataset</b><b>_</b><b>performance_evolved_populations</b><b>:</b> this files contains the raw data of the "Performance of evolved populations" experiment.Selection_regime: experimental population (1CM = WT regime; 2CM = WT-comp regime and 1Def=Def-1 regime) tested;Replicate: experimental evolution replicate, i.e., population replicate (1, 2, 3, 4 and 5); Plant: plant type (CM=wild-type and Def=<i>def-1</i>) used for fecundity measurement;Leaf_disc: number of leaf discs used with one female, i.e, number of females tested per population (=biological replicate);Leaf_number: type of leaf (3^rd and 4^th leaves) used;Block: day in which eggs were counted (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd);Eggs_evansi_cor: number of eggs counted per female; Comments: any observations made in each replicate.