Fig. 5
Increasing the dose of microfilariae does not increase numbers of eL3 but increases mosquito mortality. a Dots indicate the number of D. immitis microfilariae present in midguts of Ae. aegyptiS (blue) and Ae. aegyptiR (red) immediately following blood-feeding on the indicated doses of microfilariae. Data in each column are normally distributed, and black lines and numbers indicate the mean. No significant differences were found when Ae. aegyptiS and Ae. aegyptiR were compared at the different doses using an unpaired t-test. Data are from two independent biological replicates. b Graph of the average prevalence of D. immitis eL3 in mosquitoes feeding on blood with increasing concentrations of microfilariae, assayed 17 dpi. Error bars indicate the SD. There was no significant difference comparing the columns using analysis of variance. c Dots are the number of D. immitis eL3 from individual mosquitoes assayed 17 dpi. No significant differences were found when we compared all groups to each other or compared 4000 mf/mL to the other groups using a Kruskal–Wallis test with Dunn’s correction for multiple comparisons. Data for panels b and c are pooled from four separate biological replicates. d, e Kaplan–Meier survival plot for Ae. aegyptiS (d) or Ae. aegyptiR (e) fed with uninfected blood (BF) or blood containing different concentrations of microfilariae (4000, 8000, 16,000, 32,000 mf/ml). Pairs of adjacent treatment groups were analyzed by Kaplan–Meier, and relationships with significant differences are indicated with asterisks in Additional file 5: Figure S3 and in Additional file 6: Table S1