Fig. 1.

Growth effects of ica presence. Panel a shows images of CRA plate of strain 196 as a representative of all switching strains. Note that black (dark in picture) colonies are consistently smaller than red (light grey in picture) colonies. Panel b shows photographs of overnight broth culture of strain 45 inoculated with either black (left tube) or red (right tube) colonies from the same CRA plate. Note the extensive flocculation (black arrow) in the black colony inoculated cultures and the reduced turbidity