Fig. 3

Representative single cell division trajectories. The plot shows cell divisions (dots) of attached C. crescentus cells in the microfluidic device over 11 h (2 h favorable conditions, 2 h warning conditions with 10 μg/mL ampicillin, 2 h favorable conditions, 1 h stress with 2000 μg/ml ampicillin, 4 h favorable conditions). As an example the divisions of 10 stalked mother cells (dark blue lines starting from the left indexed 1–10) were followed. When one of these 10 cells divided (dark blue dot), a stalked mother cell and a swarmer daughter cell emerged (see also Fig. 1). A continued dark blue horizontal line represents the stalked mother cell. The swarmer daughter cell either attached directly downstream of the stalked mother cell or was washed out and was no longer observable. If the swarmer daughter cell attached, a light blue line branches off from the dark blue dot representing the division event. The dots on the light blue lines represent divisions of these swarmer cells once they had differentiated into stalked cells. Horizontal lines are only shown up to the last cell division that we observed for the respective cell. We restricted the analysis of divisions to daughter cells originating from the dark blue dots in the time period between warning and stress event