Heavy metal tolerance study The bacterial mixtures containing all strains tolerated the high-est minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) of heavy metals, 9 mM(Fig. 2).
Among the bacterial strains and mixtures tested, three of them (A3, KJ-46, and KJ-47) tolerated a heavy metal MIC of 6 mM.
Previous research implied that because the members of bacterial mixtures communicate and differentiate, the bacterial mixturescan perform more complex tasks and survive in more changeable environments than a single culture (Brenner et al., 2008).