Fig. 3: A resource-explicit ecological model shows that temporary limitation by different resources promotes coexistence.

a In an Em+Er coculture in an environment with lactose, methionine, and arginine, Em decreases across a range of initial frequencies, indicating that Er is the stronger competitor and that the two strains cannot coexist. b In a community of Em, Er and Smr in a lactose environment, both Em and Er are able to increase in frequency when initially rare, which indicates coexistence through negative-frequency dependence. c Dynamics of methionine and arginine at the left data point boxed in red in part b, where Em begins at 10%. During early timepoints, methionine is not limiting, while arginine is limiting. Growth ceases when lactose is depleted, and dynamics of the three strains and all resources are shown in Supplementary Fig. 9. d Dynamics of methionine and arginine at the right data point boxed in red in part b, where Em begins at 90%. During early timepoints, arginine is not limiting, while methionine is limiting. The dynamics of strains and all resources are shown in Supplementary Fig. 10. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.