Figure 5.

C. elegans presence increases M. xanthus predatory swarming rate. (A) Picture of C. elegans (right) and M. xanthus strain S (orange lawn and black fruiting bodies on the left) preying upon an E. coli patch (raised circle). We estimated the predatory performance of M. xanthus as the swarming distance along the horizontal midline of the prey patches of E. coli (blue) and F. johnsoniae (red). We show the swarming distance over time (B) in the presence (dotted lines) and absence (solid lines) of C. elegans’ populations initiated with 10 worms (which started reproducing at day 5), and the associated total swarming distances between days 5 and 8 (C) from the same experiment. Panel (D) depicts the total swarming distances between days 3 and 5 in the presence of different numbers of C. elegans (the worms did not reach maturity until day 5 and so did not reproduce during this experiment). Each large dot is the mean of ten (B,C) or three (D) biological replicates (shown as transparent dots). Error bars and shaded areas represent 95% confidence intervals of the means and the regression lines, respectively.