Fig. 7: Model simulations predict a positive effect of founder cell kinetic heterogeneities on competitive co-existence in fragmented habitats.

a Model workflow to simulate Monod substrate-limited (10 mM succinate) competitive growth of P. putida (PPU) and P. veronii (PVE) in droplets from Poisson-sampled individual founder cells, with individual subsampled growth rates and lag times (average values inferred from liquid suspended mono-culture growth, as in Supplementary Fig. 3). For model details, see Methods section. b Observed strain productivities of P. putida and P. veronii in mix droplets on 10 mM succinate after 24 h (reproduced from Fig. 2g for ease of comparison; normalized by the median strain-specific fluorescence of the droplet mono-cultures), in comparison to simulations with either both Poisson-distributed starting conditions and kinetic heterogeneity (c), only kinetic heterogeneity (d) or only Poisson-distributed founder cells (e). Percentages indicate the proportion of droplets with dominant P. veronii growth (i.e., either normalized fluorescence or simulated biomass above the diagonal trend line). Dots represent individual observed or simulated droplets (n = 3 replicates or simulations, 1000 droplets each). f–h Effects of variance in growth kinetic parameters of either strain on the proportion of simulated P. veronii dominance, either combined (growth rate and lag time) or individually. Normalized variance of 1 corresponds to the parameter values used in simulations of (c). Source data are provided as source data file.