To investigate whether the variance estimated from data is consistent with predictions of the dynamic model, we study the distribution of FIV prevalence in males expected by the male transmission model with maximum likelihood estimation of the parameter. In each population we simulate a male FIV prevalence according to the distribution d and then we estimate the variance in FIV prevalence in males between the 15 populations. We run 10,000 replicates and obtain a theoretical distribution of the estimated variance of FIV in males (ŝ s 2 , Fig. 6d ). We find that the observed value ofŝ s 2 (black bar) is in fact a plausible outcome of with the dynamic model.