Fig. 3.

Elevated abundances of antimicrobial peptides in the queen haemolymph post-mating. Box plot representations of label-free quantification (LFQ) intensity values at six points throughout the bumblebee queen life-cycle for: (a) abaecin; (b) defensin; (c) hymenoptaecin; and (d) apidaecin. For each protein, the y-axis shows the LFQ intensity values representative of protein abundance. The x-axis represents the six sampled queen life stages. Each box is coloured to indicate a different life stage of the queen. Stages with a significant difference in abundance (two-sample t-test; p < 0.05) are indicated with asterisks