Bacterial populations exhibit a range of metabolic states influenced by their environment,
intra-and interspecies interactions. The identification of bacterial metabolic states and
transitions between them in their native environment promises to elucidate community
behavior and stochastic processes, such as antibiotic resistance acquisition. In this work, we
employ two-photon fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) to create a metabolic
fingerprint of individual bacteria and populations. FLIM of autofluorescent reduced …