Spatio-temporal modeling of the crowding conditions and metabolic variability in microbial communities
Fig 2
Dynamics of the mutualistic community E. coli ΔmetB: methionine-secreting mutant of S. enterica (meth+) with an initial composition of 99:1.
(A) Total biomass. (B) The average volume fraction occupied by the cells (i.e. crowding conditions) in their corresponding box. (C) The species ratio convergence of meth+. Three initial crowding conditions were tested: 2% (using a box height Δz = 0.18 mm), 20% (Δz = 0.018 mm), and 40% (Δz = 0.009 mm). Closed symbols represent simulations where the crowding effect was taken into account (), while open symbols represent simulations where the crowding was neglected (
). Error bars show the standard deviation in five independent simulations.