Fig. 3: Alternative growth outcomes in fragmented growth under substrate independence.
From: Fragmented micro-growth habitats present opportunities for alternative competitive outcomes
a Maximum specific population growth rates and (b) time to first doubling of mono- and co-cultures of P. putida and P. veronii, measured in 96-well plate liquid suspension in the presence of two substrates (prioritized by either of the strains: D-mannitol for P. veronii and putrescine for P. putida; n = 6 replicate values summarized by box plots with individual data points, p-value from two-sided t-test; growth curves in Supplementary Fig. 6). c Total population size (as cells mL–1) measured by flow cytometry after 48 h for mono- and co-cultures of P. putida and P. veronii in liquid suspension (left panel) or in droplets (fused emulsions, right panel). Each dot is the mean count for each biological replicate (n = 4). P-values inside panels from two-sided t-test between mono and mix data. Welch two-sided t-test refers to fused droplet inter-species comparison. d Paired productivities after 48 h of P. putida and P. veronii in mixed droplets, overlaid from four independent biological replicates (REP1–4, individual colours), cultured on D-mannitol and putrescine (square-root-transformed AF-values). Fractions (f) denote the mean values of the proportion of paired droplet productivities falling in the grid areas labelled (a–d)(separated by dotted lines). e Increased median productivities (bars, ± one SD) for P. putida (left panel) but not for P. veronii (right panel) in mix droplets area b, compared to mono, solo and mix-area d droplets. P-values on median productivities by ANOVA coupled with two-sided post-hoc HSD Tukey test (n = 4 biological replicates, lettering indicating significance groups at p < 0.05). f P. putida grows better than expected in mix droplets with P. veronii (seen here as shift into grid area e). p-values from ANOVA two-sided post-hoc multiple test, with n = 4 biological replicates and n = 5 simulations, combined from two time points. Expected droplet distribution for pairs simulated from individual mono-culture droplet distributions at the same time point (assuming no interactions). Source data are provided as source data file.
