Fig. 4

Time-course of erythrocyte lysis in the midgut of wCle-present (+wCle) and wCle-free (–wCle) bed bugs after blood-feeding. Because erythrocyte concentrations rose between 0 h (immediately after blood feeding) and 4 h post feeding due to diuresis, and these were destructive measures, each erythrocyte concentration at 8–36 h was normalized to the mean erythrocyte concentration of the respective treatment group at 4 h post-feeding. wCle-free bed bugs had higher proportions of erythrocytes in their midguts between 8 and 20 h post-feeding (Wilcoxon test, P < 0.05). Statistical testing could not be conducted at 36 h because erythrocyte concentrations were too low to count with a hemocytometer. Summary data are shown as box plots and sample sizes are shown in parenthesis. Non-parametric tests were used because these data were not normally distributed (Shapiro-Wilk test).