Journal: Nature Communications

Article Title: Spatial proximity dictates bacterial competition and expansion in microbial communities

doi: 10.1038/s41467-025-65892-9

Figure Lengend Snippet: Bp: Bacillus paranthracis , Pa22: Pseudomonas aeruginosa 192622, CB: Carbenicillin. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. The agar (0.55%) surface was inoculated with 1 μl of a mixture containing equal biomasses of all the eight members (SynkC) or all but Bp (SynkC–Bp) at OD 600 = ~0.34, with or without CB (10 μg ml −1 ). Images of the colonies were captured at 24 h. Then, whole colonies were harvested by flooding with ~5 ml of saline. The biomasses of the cell harvests were calculated by measuring the OD 600 of each harvest suspension and multiplying it by the suspension volume. Unused inoculants and cell harvest suspensions were stored as frozen glycerol stocks and underwent 16S microbiome sequencing to determine the initial and final relative abundances of the community members (a 0.5% cut-off value applied). Each of the pie charts above shows six groups, with the Enterobacter sp . and Bacillus sp . groups representing the combined abundance of two isolates each, while all other groups represent a single isolate. For the final time point, relative areas of the pie charts represent the distribution of the respective biomasses measured. n = 2 independent experiments, each with technical replicates, yielded similar results. A representative set of data was shown here, with images equally processed for brightness/contrast. Dish diameter: 100 mm. See Supplementary Fig. for the raw data from all replicates. Phenotypes of the individual members are in Supplementary Fig. .

Article Snippet: Note that, for SynkC, neither the SeqCenter microbiome sequencing nor the Azenta Life Sciences 16S sequencing-based species identification pipelines could distinguish the members within the Enterobacter sp . and Bacillus sp. taxonomic groups.

Techniques: Saline, Suspension, Sequencing