Figure 4.

Index house finches (n = 9) inoculated with one of three treatments (control, low-virulence strain, or high-virulence strain of M. gallisepticum) varied significantly in the duration of feeding bouts (log₁₀ s) at peak infection (top panel). By contrast, there were no differences in bout duration among untreated flockmates (n = 34 birds across 9 flocks) during the same time period (bottom panel). Each data point (jittered for visualization) represents a single unique foraging bout detected via Radio Frequency Identification Device (see Methods); non-independence in repeated bouts was controlled for by including bird ID as random effect. Untransformed data were analysed with a log-link function in a GLMM but are shown here log-10 transformed for ease of visualization. Box plots represent the median (dark line), 25% quartile (lower line) and 75% quartile (upper line).