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Distinguished by their penetrance within a population, antibiotic tolerance and persistence are superficially similar phenomena by which growth-restricted bacteria survive treatment with bactericidal antibiotics. Owing to their apparent similarity, it is often assumed that the same physiological states and molecular mechanisms underlie the ability of individual antibiotic tolerant and persistent bacteria to survive treatment. Experimentally, antibiotic persistence is an extremely challenging phenomenon to study due to both its transience and the co-existence of persisters with non-persisters in the population of interest. In contrast, antibiotic tolerance operates at the whole population level as a result of bacteria acquiring genetic mutations or encountering environmental conditions that result in growth restriction. Therefore, studying antibiotic tolerance is often used as a convenient way to understand the molecular …