Fig. 5

Phenotypic evaluation of CFT females after Rhimi-CAP_2bR silencing, using the dsRNA ds1102-1200. a Percentage of female mortality, b duration of repletion period, c female weight, d duration of pre-oviposition period, e egg mass weight, f reproductive efficiency index (REI), which reflects the conversion of the blood intake to egg production, g females with no eggs, which represents females that showed no oviposition at all, h duration of egg incubation period, i percentage of egg hatching per female, j females with no hatch, reflecting the percentage of females, whose egg mass did not show hatching at all, k total observation period, from tick attachment to the animals until hatching of the first egg for each female. Negative controls: NI (non-injected ticks), dsβ-lac (dsβ-lac-injected ticks), ds1102-1200 (Rhimi-CAP_2bR dsRNA-injected ticks). Positive control: dsβ-act (dsβ-act-injected ticks). Treatments sharing the same lowercase letter were not significantly different from each other at P < 0.05 based on the Kruskal–Wallis test followed by the corrected Dunn’s multiple comparisons test