Alternative developmental and transcriptomic responses to host plant water limitation in a butterfly metapopulation

<p>The dataset is from a study examining the effects of host plant water stress on the developmental and transcriptomic responses of its specialist Lepidopteran herbivore. The study combines host plant metabolic profiling with development assays and full-transcriptome sequencing of herbivore larvae. First, we profiled metabolic differences between well-watered and water-limited ribwort plantain (<em>Plantago lanceolata</em>) using proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (¹H-NMR). Second, we tested how performance of developing Glanville fritillary (<em>Melitaea cinxia</em>) larvae was affected by host plant water limitation experienced at different larval developmental stages. Third, we examined larval gene regulatory responses to water limited host plants by sequencing full transcriptomes of 77 female larvae (RNA seq). Finally, to examine intrapopulation variation in the responses of the larvae, we compared the phenotypic and transcriptomic responses across full-sib families originating from different parts of the metapopulation. In this dataset, we provide data for the <em>P. lanceolata</em> metabolite responses to water limitation and developmental responses of the <em>M. cinxia</em> larvae to feeding on water limited <em>P. lanceolata</em>. The transcriptomic data are available from NCBI's Gene Expression Omnibus, with the accession number GSE159376.</p>