Analysis of insect survival after they are injected with 2000 bacteria cells.

<p>In this analysis, only the 20 lineages we used in the dilution experiment and for phenotypic measurements are present. In addition to the insect weight and the number of CFU present in the injected solution, we considered the median lag, the phenotypic distance to the ancestral lineage, the proportion of non-motile clones and the proportion of clones with the total haemolysis phenotype as explanatory variables. The analysis of all lineages show that the factor that explains the best the highest virulence of selected lineages is the increase in the proportion of total haemolysis, although this effect is marginal. The analysis of HDI lineages demonstrated no significant correlation between the virulence and the phenotypes we have measured. Conversely, in LDI lineages, we found a highly significant correlation between the virulence and the median lag time, i.e. the time that elapses before the absorbance of 50% of the bacterial populations of a lineage overreach that of empty wells. Contrary to our expectations, though, the LDI bacteria that kill insects the fastest are those which take the longest to start growing.