[1] It is a member of the genus Emaravirus[2] and order Bunyavirales and is transmitted mainly by the eriophyid mite Aceria ficus.

[3] FMV can cause a range of symptoms varying in severity, including leaf chlorosis, deformity, and mosaic or discoloration patterns, as well as premature fruit drop.

[6] The disease and associated virus have since been observed in Greece, Italy, Spain, Turkey, Syria, Tunisia, Algeria, Jordan, New Zealand, China, Great Britain, Puerto Rico, Australia, and the United States.

[9] Like all plant viruses, FMV encodes a movement protein (MP) to enable it to move between cells, usually by increasing the size exclusion limits (SEL) of plasmodesmata to allow viral passage.

Once the virion has entered a cell, RdRp binds to host mRNA and uses endonuclease activity to cleave the 5’ methylated cap for use as a primer for mRNA synthesis and as a way to hijack host translational machinery[5] Infection with FMV results in distinct double-membrane bodies or particles, called DMBs or DMPs, 90–200 nm in diameter in the cytosol of infected parenchyma cells.

[6][8][11] These double membrane-bound bodies are surrounded by a fibril matrix and found only in leaves showing mosaic symptoms at a macro level, never in the uninfected tissue used as a control.

[11] Some cultivars have also shown long, flexuous, rod-shaped, virus-like particles (LFPs) in tissues showing signs of necrosis.