Fig. 3

Representative images of cell aggregation within the mutualistic consortia. Images were obtained immediately before the fourteenth transfer of experimental evolution. For the A4, A6, and A8 consortia, green cells are the egfp-expressing BW25113 (∆proC) mutualistic partner and red cells are the echerry-expressing BW25113 (∆trpC) mutualistic partner. For the B2 consortium, red cells are the echerry-expressing BW25113 (∆proC) mutualistic partner and green cells are the egfp-expressing BW25113 (∆trpC) mutualistic partner. Note that all cell aggregates contained both mutualistic partners, but the qualitative structure and organization of the cell aggregates varied across the different consortia