Relationship Between Rainfall, Fecal Pollution, Antimicrobial Resistance, And Microbial Diversity In An Urbanized Subtropical Bay

Details

• Journal Title:
  Applied and Environmental Microbiology
• Personal Author:
  Powers, Nicole C. ; Wallgren, Hailey R. ; Marbach, Sandra ; Turner, Jeffrey W.
• NOAA Program & Office:
  Sea Grant ; OAR (Oceanic and Atmospheric Research)
• Sea Grant Program:
  TAMU (Texas Sea Grant)
• Description:
  Urbanized bays are vulnerable to fecal bacterial pollution, and the extent of this pollution, in marine recreational waters, is commonly assessed by quantifying enterococcus concentrations. Recent reports have questioned the utility of enterococci as an indicator of fecal bacterial pollution in subtropical bays impaired by non-point source pollution, and enterococcus data alone cannot identify fecal bacterial sources (i.e., hosts). The purpose of this study was to assess relationships between rainfall, fecal bacterial pollution, antimicrobial resistance, and microbial diversity in an urbanized subtropical bay. Thus, a comprehensive bacterial source tracking (BST) study was conducted using a combination of traditional and modern BST methods. Findings show that rainfall was directly correlated with elevated enterococcus concentrations, including the increased prevalence of Enterococcus faecium, although it was not correlated with an increase in the prevalence of antimicrobial-resistant strains. Rainfall was also correlated with decreased microbial diversity. In contrast, neither rainfall nor enterococcus concentrations were directly correlated with the concentrations of three omnipresent host-associated fecal markers (i.e., human, canine, and gull). Notably, the human fecal marker (HF183) was inversely correlated with enterococcus concentrations, signifying that traditional enterococcus data alone are not an accurate proxy for human fecal waste in urbanized subtropical bays.
• Keywords:
  Drug Resistance In Microorganisms Enterobacteriaceae Rain And Rainfall Water Quality Drug Resistance In Microorganisms Rain And Rainfall Water Quality
• Source:
  Applied and Environmental Microbiology 86(19), 2020
• DOI:
  https://doi.org/10.1128/aem.01229-20
• Sea Grant Document Number:
  TAMU-R-20-010
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Funding:
  Grant no. NA14OAR4170102
• Rights Information:
  CC BY
• Compliance:
  Library
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:e9349c98526decf79ecf651fdd2a49a0bf63e94f1410fe460a81de7343719b0a
• Download URL:
  https://repository.library.noaa.gov/view/noaa/37481/noaa_37481_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.71 MB ]