Fig. 5: Growth strategy, environmental distribution, and genomic features of cultured microbial species.

A Barplot showing the total number of cultured genomes recovered per species-cluster (n = 72). Bars are colored by the type of culture from which each genome was obtained: light orange for single-genome cultures and light green for multi-genome cultures. Species-clusters were further categorized based on their observed growth behavior: “Single” (light orange) for species that grew exclusively alone, “Group” (light green) for those that grew exclusively in groups, and “Both” (orange) for species that could grow alone and in groups. B Boxplot comparing the number of cultured genomes per species-cluster across the three growth categories. Kruskal–Wallis tests were followed by Dunn’s post hoc test for pairwise comparisons. Groups sharing at least one letter (e.g., a and ab) are not significantly different from each other, while groups with different letters (e.g., a vs. b) are significantly different (p < 0.05). C The dot plots display the relationship between the total number of cultured genomes per species-cluster and their relative abundance in the sample of origin (D), as well as the prevalence of these species-clusters in all environmental samples. Each data point represents one species-cluster. Associations were assessed using the Spearman’s rank correlation method (correlation coefficient ρ and p value shown). Trend lines are included in the plots for visualization purposes only. E Boxplot comparing the estimated genome size of species-cluster representative genomes (n = 72) growing exclusively in groups (“Group” = light green) and capable of growing alone (“Singleton-capable” = light orange). F Boxplot comparing the average pathway completeness of custom amino acid and vitamin biosynthesis modules between high-quality species-cluster representatives (n = 57; completeness >90%, contamination <5%) growing exclusively in groups and those capable of growing alone. Statistical significance was assessed using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test. Boxplots show the median and the interquartile range (IQR), with whiskers indicating 1.5× IQR.