Fig. 3

Survival rate (A) and reproductive capacity (B, C) of Rotaria macrura and Rotaria rotatoria individuals exposed to increasing doses of X-ray (up to 1000 Gy). Survival rate of hydrated and irradiated R. macrura/R. rotatoria individuals was evaluated 48h post isolation/radiation exposure (see Methods). For each replicate, 60 individuals were randomly isolated and individually placed in multi-well plates. Reproduction was evaluated by direct observation under binocular stereoscope 30 days after radiation. Effective reproduction, defined as the capacity to restart a culture from a single individual, was validated when at least 5 adults per well were observed 1 month post isolation (data were scaled to the 60 isolated individuals). Fecundity was also evaluated by counting the number of living or dead individuals 1 month after the isolation of a single individual in a single well. Data were visualized as a dotplot (● = average value with plot of standard deviation). P values (P) of GLM test are reported on each graph. Letters indicate significant differences between groups: a significant difference (Tukey test p-value <0.05) between two conditions is observed when these conditions do not share any letter