Figure 4

Correlation of life-history traits for the ten T. thermophila strains we studied. A) In the experiment on dispersal in presence of nutrients, a higher dispersal rate was associated with larger cell elongation. B) Strains with a high dispersal rate also had a greater probability of successfully colonizing a new patch as single cells. Strains adept at dispersing (C) and colonizing (D) grew faster and reached a higher final cell density in the presence of nutrients (PC3_G). Elongation strategy (PC2_S) was also associated to cell morphology and performance: strains producing more dispersal morphs and presenting a greater variance in elongation were characterized by small elongated cells (versus big round) at carrying capacity (E) and an overall inferior performance of growth in nutrient-rich medium (F). Strains presenting a K strategy of growth in nutrient-rich medium presented superior abilities to survive and elongate under starvation conditions (G). Note: because the variables whose correlation we studied do not come from the same experiment, each inset indicates the mean Spearman's correlation coefficient computed over 1000 random associations of replicates (r), the proportion of these associations where correlation was significant (s) and the probability to obtain this proportion by chance (P). See text for detail. Graphs, however, display means of five random associations to illustrate within strain variation.