. 2023 Jul 24;13:11981. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-38669-7

Table 1.

Description of the bacterial features tested for their relative importance in contributing to larval growth.

Variable	Description	Bacterial feature	Description	Experimental condition
Activity	Being alive, regardless of growing ability	Alive	Presence and supplementation of live bacteria	− E + Lp + E + + Lp + E + Lp
Activity	Being alive, regardless of growing ability	Dead	Presence and supplementation of dead bacteria	− E + + HK + E + + HK
Biomass	Increase in biomass regardless of activity	Stable	Presence of live but stable bacteria	+ E + Lp
Biomass	Increase in biomass regardless of activity	Growing	Supplementation of live or dead bacteria	− E + Lp − E + + HK + E + + Lp + E + + HK
Strain	Strain-specific potential to promote larval growth	Weak	Weakly beneficial strain	Lp^NIZO2877 association Lp^Δdltop association
Strain	Strain-specific potential to promote larval growth	Strong	Highly beneficial strain	Lp^FlyG2.1.8 association Lp^NC8 association
Antibiotic	Contribution of erythromycin to larval growth	With Erythromycin	Presence of erythromycin in the nutritional medium	+ E
Antibiotic	Contribution of erythromycin to larval growth	Without Erythromycin	Absence of erythromycin in the nutritional medium	− E

− E Absence of erythromycin in the nutritional medium, + E presence of erythromycin in the nutritional medium, + Lp single inoculation of L. plantarum at day 0 of mono-association, + + Lp daily addition of L. plantarum, + + HK daily addition of heat-killed bacterial cells.