Table 3.

Experimental approaches to address open questions surrounding auxotrophy-based interactions (see section VIII for the formulation of the questions).

	Experimental approaches	Questions addressed
Sequencing	Metagenomic studies (e.g. MAGs)	1,2
	Single cell sequencing	1,5
	Genomic analyses of cultured isolates	2,4
Modeling	Population modeling	3,5
	Genome-scale metabolic modeling	4
	Incorporating auxotrophy into trait based model	3,5,6
Culturing	Synthetic consortia	1,2,3,4,5,6
	Chemostats, turbidostats	2,3,5,6
	Monoculture	4
	Stable-isotope tracing	1,4,6