Data from: Complex environmental drivers of immunity and resistance in malaria mosquitoes

Considerable research effort has been directed at understanding the genetic and molecular basis of mosquito innate immune mechanisms. Whether environmental factors interact with these mechanisms to shape overall resistance remains largely unexplored. Here we examine how changes in mean ambient temperature, diurnal temperature fluctuation, and time of day of infection affected the immunity and resistance of Anopheles stephensi to infection with Escherichia coli. We used quantitative PCR to estimate the gene expression of three immune genes in response to challenge with heat-killed Escherichia coli. We also infected mosquitoes with live E. coli and ran bacterial survival assays to quantify host resistance. Both mosquito immune parameters and resistance were directly affected by mean temperature, diurnal temperature fluctuation, and time of day of infection. Furthermore there was a suite of complex 2- and 3-way interactions yielding idiosyncratic phenotypic variation under different environmental conditions. The results demonstrate mosquito immunity and resistance to be strongly influenced by a complex interplay of environmental variables, challenging the interpretation of the very many mosquito immune studies conducted under standard laboratory conditions.Gene Expression Assay dataThese data are associated with the gene expression experiment and were collected in the laboratory, initially entered into excel, and analyzed in SPSS IBM version 21. There are two worksheets associated with this excel file. The GeneExpressionAssay worksheet contains gene expression data from each treatment group. The MortalityData worksheet includes mosquito mortality across the 24 hr experiment.GeneExpressionAssay_Data_dryad.xlsMosquito Resistance Assay DataThe data from the mosquito resistance assay were collected in the lab, initially recorded in excel, and analyzed in SPSS IBM version 21. These data consist of two worksheets. The InVivoEcoliGrowth worksheet contains the average growth of Escherichia coli 24 hr post-injection with 0.2 uL of heat-killed E. coli. The MortalityData worksheet contains the mortality data associated with this experiment across 24 hr.MosquitoResistanceAssay_Data_dryad.xls