Fig. 4

Geospatial variation of within-host and population level genetic diversity of P. falciparum parasites in Vhembe. a Multiplicity of infection (MOI) measured as the second highest number of alleles detected at any of the 26 loci across the different source health districts in the Vhembe District. The dashed red line indicates the mean MOI = 2.13. b Within-host diversity index (outbreeding, 1-F_WS) measured across the different source health districts. The dashed red line indicates the mean 1-F_WS = 0.22. c Population level genetic diversity measured as the distribution of heterozygosity in 26 microsatellite loci across the different source health districts. The dashed red line indicates the mean heterozygosity = 0.74. Pairwise P values (t-test) are indicated in all plots where, not significant: P > 0.05; *: P ≤ 0.05; **: P ≤ 0.01; ***: P ≤ 0.001; ****: P ≤ 0.0001. d Heatmap showing matrix of between source health district pairwise F_ST. The range of F_ST values for the pairwise comparisons is shown in the legend and significance was tested using the Monte Carlo method