Fig. 5
Within-host competitive fitness of the evolved and ancestral lineages. Fitness (W) determined by competition experiments and RT-qPCR of the different viral genotypes with respect to a common competitor; TEV-mCherry. W was determined at 10 dpi, of TEV, the ancestral TEV-eGFP, and the evolved TEV-eGFP lineages in N. benthamiana (a) and D. stramonium (b). TEV and the evolved lineage with a deletion in the eGFP gene (B; L8) are indicated with the orange bars. The ancestral TEV-eGFP and the evolved lineages with an intact eGFP gene are indicated with the green bars. The orange asterisks indicate statistical significant differences of the evolved lineages as compared to TEV (t-test with Holm-Bonferroni correction for multiple tests). The green asterisks indicate statistical significant differences of the evolved lineages as compared to the ancestral TEV-eGFP (t-test with Holm-Bonferroni correction for multiple tests). Not indicated in the figure is that TEV and TEV-eGFP ancestral tested significantly different in D. stramonium (B; t-test: t 4 = 13.438, P <0.001) while not in N. benthamiana (A; t-test: t 4 = −1.389, P = 0.237). Error bars represent SD of the plant replicates