Figure 4.

The onset of growth and activity occurs sooner for the consortium than a mix of strains. a. We compared the growth and metabolic activity of the co-cultured consortium to that of a mix of the same nine strains pooled together to imitate the cell counts of the individual strains at equilibrium. Strict anaerobic serum flasks containing PBMF010 medium were inoculated with either a consortium sample from the continuous fermentation, or an ‘Artificial Mix (AM)’ of single strains at the same ratios as in the continuous fermentation. b-d. Metabolite concentrations in terms of mol of carbon were measured during 48 h. e. Cell counts of each of the nine strains were measured using qPCR.