translation.en: Then we monitored phthalate utilization and bacterial growth, and found that they shared an inverse correlation, so as bacterial populations increased, phthalate concentrations decreased.
translation.zh: 之后我们监测了邻苯二甲酸酯使用率 跟细菌增长率， 我们发现这两者呈现出负相关， 所以当细菌数量增长时， 邻苯二甲酸酯浓度就会降低。