Figure 2

C. elegans L1 larvae enhance adult food-leaving. Bacterial lawns were loaded with C. elegans eggs at increasing density, ranging from 5 to 140, as indicated by allowing gravid adults to lays eggs on the lawn for a period of time following which the adults were removed. The eggs were left overnight to hatch into larvae and the food-leaving assay instigated by placing seven adults on each lawn. (A) Food-leaving and (B) proportion of worms off food were scored as described for Fig. 1A,B. Data are mean ± s.e.mean. ‘n’ number for treatment group ‘0’, n = 4, all other treatments n = 3. Two-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons test; *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001. (C) C. elegans larvae enhance adult food-leaving from lawns that have never been exposed to adults. In this experiments isolated eggs were pipetted onto the lawn and the effect of the resulting larvae on adult food-leaving compared to that on plates prepared by eggs laid from gravid adults as described in A. Data are mean ± s.e.mean. ‘n’ number for ‘0’ progeny treatment group and for ‘140’ progeny loaded by the method described in A = 3, ‘n’ for progeny preloaded by pipetting = 4. Two-way ANOVA with Tukey’s multiple comparisons test; ****P < 0.0001. (D) L4 larvae did not enhance adult food-leaving. Bacterial lawns were conditioned with 120 L4s for 2 hours after which adult food-leaving was scored. Data are mean ± s.e.mean. ‘n’ = 3 for each experimental group. p > 0.05 unpaired Student’s t-test. This experiment was repeated to allow for longer pre-conditioning of the lawn by picking L3s onto the lawn and leaving them for 10 hours by which time the larvae had all developed into L4s. The leaving rate of adults (picked onto the lawn 2 hours before) was scored. Data are mean ± s.e.mean. ‘n’ = 5 for each experimental group. p > 0.05 unpaired Student’s t-test.