Data from: Early life nutritional quality effects on adult memory retention in a parasitic wasp

Nutritional quality during early life can affect learning ability and memory retention of animals. Here we studied the effect of resource quality gained during larval development on the learning ability and memory retention of 2 sympatric strains of similar genetic background of the parasitoid Trichogramma brassicae: one uninfected and one infected by Wolbachia. Wolbachia is a common arthropod parasite/mutualistic symbiont with a range of known effects on host fitness. Here we studied, for the first time, the interaction between resource quality and Wolbachia infection on memory retention and resource acquisition. Memory retention of uninfected wasps was significantly longer when reared on high quality hosts when compared to low quality hosts. Furthermore, uninfected wasps emerging from high quality hosts showed higher values of protein and triglyceride than those emerging from low quality hosts. In contrast, the memory retention for infected wasps was the same irrespective of host quality, although retention was significantly lower than uninfected wasps. No significant effect of host quality on capital resource amount of infected wasps was observed, and infected wasps displayed a lower amount of protein and triglyceride than uninfected wasps when reared on high quality hosts. This study suggests that the nutritional quality of the embryonic period can affect memory retention of adult wasps not infected by Wolbachia. However, by manipulating the host’s obtained capital resource amount, Wolbachia could enable exploitation of the maximum available resources from a range of hosts to acquire suitable performance in complex environments.生命早期的营养质量可影响动物的学习能力与记忆保持能力。本研究聚焦幼虫发育阶段获取的资源质量，对两种遗传背景相似的同域甘蓝夜蛾赤眼蜂（Trichogramma brassicae）品系的学习能力与记忆保持能力的影响：二者分别为未感染沃尔巴克氏体（Wolbachia）的品系，与感染沃尔巴克氏体的品系。沃尔巴克氏体是一类常见的节肢动物寄生/互利共生菌，已知可对宿主的适合度产生多种影响。本研究首次探究了资源质量与沃尔巴克氏体感染在记忆保持与资源获取方面的交互作用。与取食低质量宿主的未感染寄生蜂相比，取食高质量宿主的未感染寄生蜂的记忆保持时长显著更长。此外，从高质量宿主羽化的未感染寄生蜂，其体内蛋白质与甘油三酯含量均高于从低质量宿主羽化的个体。与之相反，感染沃尔巴克氏体的寄生蜂的记忆保持时长不受宿主质量影响，但其记忆保持时长显著低于未感染个体。未观察到宿主质量对感染沃尔巴克氏体的寄生蜂的资本资源储备量存在显著影响；且在取食高质量宿主时，感染沃尔巴克氏体的寄生蜂体内蛋白质与甘油三酯含量均低于未感染个体。本研究表明，胚胎期的营养质量可影响未感染沃尔巴克氏体的成年寄生蜂的记忆保持能力。然而，通过调控宿主获取的资本资源储备量，沃尔巴克氏体可帮助寄生蜂最大化利用各类宿主的可用资源，从而在复杂环境中获得适宜的生存表现。