Abstract
The arrival order of different species to a habitat can strongly impact community assembly and succession dynamics, thus influencing functionality. In this study, we asked how prior colonization of one community member would influence the assembly of a synergistic multispecies biofilm community grown in vitro. We expected that the prior arrival would confer an advantage, in particular for good biofilm formers. Yet, we did not know if the cohabitants would be impaired or benefit from the pre-colonization of one member, depending on its ability to form biofilm. We used a consortium consisting of four soil bacteria; Stenotrophomonas rhizophila, Xanthomonas retroflexus, Microbacterium oxydans and Paenibacillus amylolyticus. This consortium has been shown to act synergistically when grown together, thus increasing biofilm production. The results showed that the two good biofilm formers gained a fitness advantage (increase in abundance) when allowed prior colonization on an abiotic surface before the arrival of their cohabitants. Interestingly, the significantly higher number of the pre-colonized biofilm formers did not affect the resulting composition in the subsequent biofilm after 24 h.
Highlights
Microbial biofilms in nature are often composed of numerous species that directly or indirectly interact with each other
From this study of our synergistic biofilm consortium, we can conclude that mono species pre-colonization did not affect the growth of cohabitants, in the Drip-flow reactors (DFR) biofilm system
The significant increase in abundance, observed for the two good biofilm formers, S. rhizophila and X. retroflexus, and the slightly higher abundances of P. amylolyticus and M. oxydans, observed when pre-inoculating with those species, indicate that prior arrival to the surface confers a growth advantage that relates to the ability of the pre-inoculated species to attach and form biofilm
Summary
Microbial biofilms in nature are often composed of numerous species that directly or indirectly interact with each other. An important aspect during biofilm assembly, compared to planktonic communities, is that potential cohabitants physically attach and co-aggregate. Interactions between different species have been reported to both facilitate and impede other species from establishing, during biofilm assembly (Christensen et al, 2002; Trautner et al, 2002; Lin et al, 2018). The order and timing of species arrival to a habitat can strongly impact the way species interact in a biofilm community by altering the success of establishment of late colonizers (Klayman et al, 2009; Fukami, 2015). Our aim was to investigate how prior colonization of a single member would affect assembly of a multispecies biofilm. We used a consortium consisting of four bacteria; Stenotrophomonas rhizophila, Xanthomonas retroflexus, Microbacterium oxydans
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