Fig. 2. Bacterial and fungal long-distance effects on protist growth.

Boxplots showing plasmodial length of the model protist Physarum polycephalum in response to different (a) bacterial and (b) fungal taxa (x-axis) that were part of the microbial decomposer communities (Tables S1 and S2). C is the control with only nutrient agar without bacteria (left) or potato dextrose agar without fungi (right). Different letters above the bars indicate that protist responses differed significantly (p < 0.05) between the microbial species in a Tukey HSD test. Tukey HSD tests were carried out for bacteria and fungi separately, therefore letters should be compared within panels only.