FIG 1.

Acetobacter and L. brevis mutualism in vitro. Bacteria were inoculated independently or in a 1:1 mixture on YPD agar plates. (A and B) CFU after 6 days of culture for A. tropicalis in monoculture (At) or coculture (At+Lb), A. fabarum in monoculture (Af) or coculture (Af+Lb), and L. brevis in monoculture (Lb) or coculture (Lb+xx) (n = 9). ***, P < 0.001 in Wilcoxon test comparing the bracketed treatments. In each box plot, the box delineates the first and third quartiles, the dark line is the median, and the whiskers show the range. White bars indicate monocultures and gray bars indicate cocultures. (C and D) CFU of the species indicated after 6 days of coculture initiated with different ratios of L. brevis to A. fabarum (n = 3 to 5). *, P < 0.05 in Wilcoxon test, indicating significantly lower CFU in comparison with a 1:1 ratio inoculum or between the bracketed treatments. (E) Colony areas measured digitally using ImageJ software; bars indicate the mean ± standard deviation (n = 18).