Data_2020_Utrecht

We allowed the rhizosphere bacterium Pseudomonas protegens CHA0 to evolve on the roots of Arabidopsis thaliana for six plant growth cycles. To quantify changes in bacterial phenotypes, sixteen evolved bacterial colonies were randomly selected from each of the five plant replicate selection lines at the end of the second, fourth and sixth growth cycle, in addition to sixteen randomly selected ancestral colonies (in total 256 isolates). Then k-means analysis was applied to determining novel bacterial phenotypes. A subset of isolates of each bacterial phenotypes was characterised for their effects on plant root architecture and above and belowground biomass in separate assays at the end of the selection experiment.