Figure 3. C. elegans developmental growth rates and body size during development correlate with adult microbiome.

A. Developmental growth rates of representative strains from each microbiome type [Type 1 (JU1400 and CB4856), Type 2 (N2 and LKC34) and Type 3 (ED3017)] grown on BIGbiome and E. coli OP50. Percentage of adults are represented as mean ± SD with 4 replicates for each condition; representative of 3 independent experiments. See also Data S1F. B. Box-whisker plots of percent adults at 52 h post L1 stage (from A). Number of individual animals: BIGbiome (JU1400: n=145, CB4856: n=141, N2: n=132, LKC34: n=176, ED3017: n=157); E. coli OP50 (JU1400: n=173, CB4856: n=166, N2: n=142, LKC34: n=142, ED3017: n=153). C. Box-whisker plot of C. elegans body size by microbiome types at 48 h and 120 h post L1 stage. Type 1 strains (n=1076) had longer body size than Type 2 (n=168) and Type 3 strains (n=158) at 48 h. No significant difference among Type 1 (n=501), 2 (n=68), and 3 (n=56) at 120 h. P-values (for B and C) were generated from: one-way ANOVA, followed by and post hoc Tukey Honest Significant Difference test with 95% confidence level and adjusted for multiple comparisons (*** p<0.001, ** p<0.01,* p<0.05, n.s not significant). See also Data S1G for body size at strain level. D. Pearson correlations of microbial taxa abundance (day 3 adults) with host developmental rates (52 h post L1) and body size (48 h post L1). The test statistic is based on Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient and follows a t distribution with length(x)-2 degrees of freedom at the level of 95% confidence interval. Ochrobactrum (colored in red) is the only microbial taxa with positive correlation with both host phenotypes (p<0.05). 9 microbial taxa (colored in blue) show negative correlations with both host phenotypes (p<0.05). See also Table S3 and Figure S4.