Ds fi2 colour camera

Slides were visualized using brightfield or fluorescent microscopy (Nikon Eclipse Ni-E, Nikon DS Fi2 colour camera, Nikon Qi2 fluorescent camera, NIS Elements Imaging) and example images were captured using × 10 and × 20 objectives.

Growth was determined from cell quantification throughout culture monitoring to define the exponential division rate per day (μ, d^-1) as per [ref. 11 (link)]. Cell quantification was determined using a haemocytometer (Neubauer Haemocytometer, Fisher Scientific, Loughborough, UK) as per [ref. 87 (link)]. Average cell volume for each isolate was determined from a minimum of 50 cells from images captured using NIS-Elements AR software (v.4.30.000) and an Eclipse Ni-U optical microscope coupled with a DS-Fi2 colour camera (Nikon, Tokyo, Japan). Images were processed on the NIS-Elements AR software to calculate spherical volume from cell diameter, of all cells present in each image. Elemental measurements were subsequently considered relative to both division rate and volume as both can influence nutrient acquisition [65 ].