Figure 1

Schematic representation of the experimental set-up. For the parental generation, (a) 600 Anopheles gambiae (s.s.) larvae were reared individually under high and low food conditions, and (b) 300 larvae of each food treatment were exposed to Vavraia culicis spores. (c) After emergence, the females were placed into mating cages according to their treatment, given access to uninfected males, and allowed to blood-feed. (d) Fully engorged females (= mothers) were put into individual egg-laying cups. (e) To start the offspring generation, the eggs of each mother were bleached and placed into Petri dishes for hatching. (f) Six larvae of each mother were reared individually in 12-well plates. (g) The pupae were placed into individual tubes for emergence. (h) Two adult females of each family were moved to two cages (replicates) per treatment, and allowed to feed on malaria-infectious blood. (i) After blood-feeding the mosquitoes were held individually in cups until dissection. (j) Mosquitoes of cages C1 were dissected for oocysts 12 days after blood-feeding; the mosquitoes of cages C2 were dissected for sporozoites 19 days after blood-feeding.