Figure 4

Conceptualisation of population responses and per capita parasite infection related to diet treatment. The P-limited diet (light green jars on right) led to a five- to six-fold decrease in population numbers of Daphnia magna compared to populations receiving P-sufficient food (green jars on left) but did not affect the spore production in infected founder animals (depicted as orange Daphnia). Because of a 10-14 day time lag in parasite development, the density of juveniles, not yet producing spores but filtering spores from water, remained lower in the P-limited than in the P-sufficient populations, leading to a higher per capita spore load in the P-limited Daphnia populations.