Non-genetic adaptation by collective migration

Cell populations must adjust their phenotypic composition to adapt to changing environments. One adaptation strategy is to maintain distinct phenotypic subsets within the population and to modulate their relative abundances via gene regulation. Another strategy involves genetic mutations, which can be augmented by stress-response pathways. Here, we studied how a migrating bacterial population regulates its phenotypic distribution to traverse diverse environments. We generated isogenic Escherichia coli populations with varying distributions of swimming behaviors and observed their phenotype distributions during migration in liquid and porous environments. We found that the migrating populations became enriched with high-performing swimming phenotypes in each environment, allowing the populations to adapt without requiring mutations or gene regulation. This adaptation is dynamic and rapid, reversing in a few doubling times when migration ceases. By measuring the chemoreceptor abundance di..., Growth rates measurements
Growth measurements were done using a microplate reader (BioTek Epoch 2 microplate spectrophotometer). Overnight cultures were diluted by 100-fold into fresh media supplemented with appropriate inducer concentrations. 200 μL of diluted cells were aliquoted into each well of polystyrene 96-well plates (Falcon 96-wells REF 353072), and the plates were loaded into the plate reader. The plates were incubated at 30oC while continuously shaking linearly at 567 cpm. The OD600 of each well was measured every 7 minutes for 36 hours. To extract the growth rates of each sample, the slopes of the linear region (at the mid-exponential growth phases) of the natural log of OD600 versus time (hours) curves were calculated.
 
Formation of propagating waves and expansion speed measurements using swim plate and capillary tube assays
For the swim plate assay, 3 µL of cells in exponential phase were inoculated at the center of semi-solid agarose plates for RP437-derived strai..., , # Non-genetic adaptation by collective migration

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ksn02v7fd](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.ksn02v7fd)

## Description of the data and file structure

The dataset is a collection of .mat files, which each contain MATLAB struct variables with processed single-cell trajectories or Tsr/CheYZ measurements. For the measurement of the relaxation of mean TB, the .mat files are structs that contain a table which contains the mean TB values of each trajectories and other information such as the replicate number, timepoint, and trajectory duration of that trajectory. For the measurement of tumble bias vs. OD600, the .mat file provided contains three variables that contains information about the TB for each trajectory, the OD600, and timepoints of measurements. The dataset also contains .xlsx files that reports the growth rates and expansion speeds of various conditions and strains.

**The description of each provided files**

1. **datalabel.xlsx**: This file outlines...