Growth in stochastic environments.

<p>Panel (A) shows the momentary growth rate during stress and growth phases (full red line), and the time-averaged growth rate (dashed blue line) which approaches an asymptotic constant after several environmental cycles. (B) Long-term time-averaged growth rates in periodically and stochastically changing environments of mean durations ( as a function of the downregulation levels. In stochastic environments populations which strongly downregulate () can have a time-averaged growth rate (full gray line) several times higher than in a time-periodic environment (dashed blue line). These differences become negligible when populations recover much faster than the average growth durations, e.g. at (). (C) Optimal downregulation levels that maximize net-growth in stochastic environments of mean durations . The phase boundaries follow similar lines as in the periodic case.