Veterinary Microbiology and Immunobiology Commons^™

Evidence For Continental-Scale Dispersal Of Antimicrobial Resistant Bacteria By Landfill-Foraging Gulls, Christina A. Ahlstrom, Mariëlle L. Van Toor, Hanna Woksepp, Jeffrey C. Chandler, John A. Reed, Andrew B. Reeves, Jonas Waldenström, Alan B. Franklin, David C. Douglas, Jonas Bonnedahl, Andrew M. Ramey

USDA Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Anthropogenic inputs into the environment may serve as sources of antimicrobial resistant bacteria and alter the ecology and population dynamics of synanthropic wild animals by providing supplemental forage. In this study, we used a combination of phenotypic and genomic approaches to characterize antimicrobial resistant indicator bacteria, animal telemetry to describe host movement patterns, and a novel modeling approach to combine information fromthese diverse data streams to investigate the acquisition and long-distance dispersal of antimicrobial resistant bacteria by landfill-foraging gulls. Our results provide evidence that gulls acquire antimicrobial resistant bacteria from anthropogenic sources, which they may subsequently disperse across and between …