Fig. 5From: A passive mutualistic interaction promotes the evolution of spatial structure within microbial populationsMagnitude of cell aggregation for different combinations of ancestral and evolved mutualistic partners from the B2 mutualistic consortium. Cell aggregation was measured as the maximum observed K-value. Definitions: Panc, ancestral strain of BW25113 (∆proC); Tanc, ancestral strain of BW25113 (∆trpC); Pevol, evolved strain of BW25113 (∆proC); Tevol,a, evolved strain of BW25113 (∆trpC); Tevol,b, evolved strain of BW25113 (∆trpC). Tevol,a and Tevol,b are two genetically different strains of BW25113 (∆trpC) that emerged within the B2 mutualistic consortium. The data are presented as Tukey box plots. Note that the K-values (and thus cell aggregation) were the largest for pairs of evolved mutualistic partners, suggesting that genetic changes in both partners contributed to the observed cell aggregationBack to article page