FIG 2.

Inactivation of LaeA increases bacterial diversity and abundance in cheese rind communities. The stacked barcharts show the shifts in the relative abundances of a typical rind bacterial community in the presence of four strains of Penicillium sp. strain MB after (a) 3, (c) 10, and (e) 21 days of incubation. Data are mean relative abundance from two independent experiments with five biological replicates each. The compositions of the Bacteria Alone and MB_ΔlaeA communities were not significantly different from one another, but were different from MB_WT, MB_HygR, MB_laeAc at 10 and 21 days (Day 3 PERMANOVA F = 0.9958, p = 0.425; Day 10 PERMANOVA F = 23.12, P < 0.0001; Day 21 PERMANOVA F = 11.14, P < 0.0001). The bar graphs show absolute abundances of individual bacterial community members from the same experiments as in (a), (c), and (e) in the presence of Penicillium sp. strain WT and mutants (MB_ΔlaeA, MB_HygR, and MB_laeAc) after (b) 3 (d), 10 and (f) 21 days of incubation. Each bar represents the mean with standard errors and each dot represents a biological replicate. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed for each bacterium. Dunnett’s multiple comparison test was used and compared to the WT strain. (****) indicates P < 0.0001, (***) indicates P < 0.001, (**) indicates P < 0.01, (*) indicates P < 0.05, and no asterisk indicates not significant (ns). For exact P-values for each treatment, see Data Set S1.