Fig. 4

Co-cultures persist through time and perturbation. Representative continuous co-cultures of E. coli W ΔcscR/cscB ⁺ S. elongatus (a) and W303^Clump S. cerevisiae/cscB ⁺ S. elongatus (b) were cultured in photobioreactors with 1 mM IPTG. E. coli-containing consortia were grown in constant light while S. cerevisiae communities were exposed to 16:8 hour light/dark photo periods (grey spaces represent darkness). Optical density of the entire culture (black points) as well as counts for the individual cell types were tracked (green S. elongatus, orange E. coli W ΔcscR, purple W303^Clump S. cerevisiae). Additional photobioreactor cultures for E. coli W ΔcscR and W303^Clump S. cerevisiae are presented in Additional file 1: Figure S6 and S7, respectively. Extended W303^Clump S. cerevisiae/cscB ⁺ S. elongatus co-cultures are presented in Additional file 1: Figure S8. Recovery of B subtilis 3610/cscB ⁺ S. elongatus (c) or E. coli W ΔcscR /cscB ⁺ S. elongatus (d) batch cultures following dilution at 24 hours was monitored by viable colony counts and flow cytometry for heterotrophs and cyanobacteria, respectively. Perturbations on to solid media are presented in Additional file 1: Figure S9