Table 1.

Experimental design for assessing associations between spreadability and virulence treatment, from no virulence (control) to infection with a high-virulence strain of Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG), in house finches. Only one bird per flock (the ‘index’ bird) received the treatment, and the remaining birds (flockmates) were used to quantify powder transfer, our metric of spreadability, from the index bird at peak infectiousness (day 10 post-inoculation).

index bird treatment	no. flocks	no. birds total
control (sham inoculation)	n = 3	n = 15 (5 / group)
low-virulence MG strain	n = 3	n = 15 (5 / group)
high-virulence MG strain	n = 3	n = 15 (5 / group)