by Christoph — You may won­der whether the 'olig­otrophic growth state' of Bacil­lus sub­tilis – the sub­ject of part 1 – isn't just the capri­ole of a do­mes­ti­cated bac­terium in the lab, and not of much rel­e­vance "in the wild." But, as you will soon see, it prob­a­bly is rel­e­vant in nat­ural set­tings. But first I have to go back...