Figure 2
Moku virus load and replication in colonies of Vespula pensylvanica in 2016 (a) and 2017 (b). Each sample is a pool of 20 workers from a single colony. Viral load is calculated from qPCR data as -(Cqviral gene – Cqcontrol gene)). Load is bimodal: high load colonies have roughly 1000-fold more copies of virus RNA than low load colonies (each load unit represents a twofold increase in viral RNA). Dashed line indicates the threshold (load = 7) used to separate “low” and “high” load colonies in analyses. c. Viral replication, determined by strand-specific reverse-transcription PCR for 20 representative colonies, was observed in a subset of samples with relatively high load. Open circles represent strong bands on an agarose gel, indicating a positive replication test. Grey circles represent very faint bands, which could indicate lower levels of replication. Crosses represent no band, and thus no detected replication. Points are jittered in the y dimension to improve visualization.
