Before revision:  For {\em C. crescentus} cells, we show that the rate of exponential growth of single (stalked) cells governs the dynamics of the entire lifecycle, including the swarmer-to-stalked cell transition .
After revision:  For {\em C. crescentus} cells, we show that a simple measurement of the population growth rate, for a given growth condition, is sufficient to characterize the condition-specific cellular unit of time, and thus yields the mean (single-cell) growth and division timescales, fluctuations in cell division times, the cell age distribution, and the quiescence timescale .