Fig. 2: Evolutionary rescue prevents the extinction of bacterial consortium engaged in an obligate mutualism based on metabolic exchange.
From: Mutualism breakdown underpins evolutionary rescue in an obligate cross-feeding bacterial consortium

a Population dynamics of the prototrophic strain (gray) and the obligate mutualism (green) in three different stress treatments (no stress, salinity, and PNP). The red and purple background indicate exposure to salinity or PNP, correspondingly. The experiment consisted of 48 independent populations for each treatment. b Box plots representing the transfer when consortia/populations begin to recover after stress exposure (OD600 shifts from negative to positive trend), with n = 48 for salinity and PNP. P-value (***p < 0.01) was determined by a two-sided Mann–Whitney U-test (p-value ~ 10-12). c Maximal rate of recovery computed as maximum change in population size per transfer for each experimental culture after stress exposure (OD600/transfer), with n = 37 for salinity and n = 46 PNP. P-value (***p < 0.01) was determined by a two-sided Mann–Whitney U-test (p-value ~ 10−10). d Final population size of mutualistic communities (n = 48), calculated as the median of the last three transfers normalized relative to the median of the prototrophic strain at the final transfer. P-values (b, c) ***<0.001 (two sided Mann–Whitney U-test). All box plots display the interquartile range (IQR) of the data, with the horizontal line inside the box indicating the median. The whiskers extend to 1.5 times the IQR, showing the range of the data distribution. Source data are provided as a Source Data file.