Figure 2. Interactions between preened feather tufts and AIV–contaminated salt water.

(A) Feather tufts surrounding the oil gland papilla were taken from slaughtered mallards (n = 5) and preened by squeezing the uropygial gland. (B) Preened feather tufts were soaked in AIV-contaminated salt water for 24 h before qRRT-PCR assays to detect the M gene. (C) The mean ±2 SEMs of log₁₀ of M gene copies per reaction from each mallard (UPG+1 to UPG+5) is shown; the contaminated salt water was used for comparison.