Figure 2.

Bacterial microbiome in baseline populations of the colony‐reared Ixodes scapularis adult ticks. Each bar represents an individual whole tick sample (identified on x‐axis), where different colors indicate the relative proportions of various bacteria characterized to the genus level (wherever possible) based on 97% OTU similarity threshold of bacterial 16S V4 rRNA gene using Greengenes reference database. Baseline ticks were frozen upon receipt and not exposed to any temperature incubations. (Left panel, male ticks; middle panel, female ticks; right panel, female ticks after in silico removal of Rickettsia)