New Insights into the Effects of Several Environmental Parameters on the Relative Fitness of a Numerically Dominant Class of Evolved Niche Specialist

Figure 4

Reducing the importance of O₂ reduces Wrinkly Spreader fitness. Nutrient levels were manipulated to reduce the importance of O₂ in static microcosms. The nutrient component in was diluted to produce microcosms with 0.01x and 0.1x normal nutrient levels. Microcosms were incubated for 3 days before assay and the relative competitive fitness of the Wrinkly Spreader was determined compared to the non-biofilm-forming P. fluorescens SBW25. Here, the relative fitness () is provided where the reference microcosms with normal (1x) nutrient levels have relative fitness of one (marked by the horizontal dashed line); the curve indicated here is illustrative only. Means ± SE are shown (), and means not linked by the same letter are significantly different (TK-HSD, ). The standard microcosm data are also shown in Figure 2.