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Title: First-passage-time statistics of growing microbial populations carry an imprint of initial conditions
Abstract

In exponential population growth, variability in the timing of individual division events and environmental factors (including stochastic inoculation) compound to produce variable growth trajectories. In several stochastic models of exponential growth we show power-law relationships that relate variability in the time required to reach a threshold population size to growth rate and inoculum size. Population-growth experiments inE. coliandS. aureuswith inoculum sizes ranging between 1 and 100 are consistent with these relationships. We quantify how noise accumulates over time, finding that it encodes—and can be used to deduce—information about the early growth rate of a population.

 
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Award ID(s):
2032985
NSF-PAR ID:
10477784
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
Nature Publishing Group
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Scientific Reports
Volume:
13
Issue:
1
ISSN:
2045-2322
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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