Articles of Significant Interest in This Issue.

Abstract

Inoculation studies that evaluate population dynamics of pathogens on foods are essential for accurate and robust microbial risk assessment. Harrand et al. (e01925-20) found that different pregrowth conditions (“nurture”) yielded a wider range of Salmonella enterica and Escherichia coli growth and survival patterns on produce than did genetic diversity alone (“nature”). For Listeria, neither pregrowth condition nor genetic diversity showed a substantial effect on growth. These findings suggest that studies on bacterial growth and survival in foods or other matrices should use strains grown under different conditions, particularly if the likely pregrowth conditions expected in the “real world” are not known.