Development of a competition model for microbial growth in mixed culture

Abstract

A novel competition model for describing bacterial growth in mixed culture was developed in this study. Several model candidates were made with our logistic growth model that precisely describes the growth of a monoculture of bacteria. These candidates were then evaluated for the usefulness in describing growth of two competing species in mixed culture using Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella. Bacterial cells of two species grew at initial doses of 103, 104, and 105 CFU/g at 28°C. Among the candidates, a model where the Lotka-Volterra model, a general competition model in ecology, was incorporated as a new term in our growth model was the best for describing all types of growth of two competitors in mixed culture. Moreover, the values for the competition coefficient in the model were stable at various combinations of the initial populations of the species. The Baranyi model could also successfully describe the above types of growth in mixed culture when it was coupled with the Gimenez and Dalgaard model. However, the values for the competition coefficients in the competition model varied with the conditions. The present study suggested that our model could be a basic model for describing microbial competition.