FIG. 1.

Infection dynamics of male-killing and non-male-killing spiroplasmas throughout the early developmental stages of D. melanogaster, expressed in terms of the number of dnaA copies per individual insect (A) or per host ef1α gene copy (B). Five replicated measurements for the egg and first-instar stages and 10 replicated measurements for the later stages were obtained. Note that for the tiny eggs and first-instar larvae five samples, each containing 100 individuals, were used for DNA extraction and quantitative PCR analysis. The error bars indicate standard errors. An asterisk indicates that there is a significant difference between NSRO-infected females and NSRO-A-infected females (asterisks above the lines) or between NSRO-A-infected females and males (asterisks below the lines) (P < 0.05, as determined by the Mann-Whitney U test).