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ANALYSIS OF AQUATIC MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES IMPACTED BY LARGE POULTRY FORMS
Citation:
Ringbauer, J AND F J. Genthner. ANALYSIS OF AQUATIC MICROBIAL COMMUNITIES IMPACTED BY LARGE POULTRY FORMS. Presented at Agricultural Hydrology & Water Quality, Kansas City, MO, May 12-14, 2003.
Description:
Microbial communities often respond more rapidly and extensively to environmental change than communities of higher organisms. Thus, characterizing shifts in the structure of native bacterial communities as a response to changes in nutrients, antimicrobials, and invading pathogenic bacteria may be a sensitive early warning indictor of ecosystem degradation. The DelMarVa Peninsula has the highest concentration of broilers per farm acre in the United States. Millions of pounds of antibiotics are now used in poultry production each year, which subsequently select for resistant pathogens, which are passed into the litter and then runoff into the nearby waterways. The impact of runoff from poultry Concentrated Animal Feedlot Operations (CAFO's) on aquatic microbial communities in the DelMarVa peninsula was investigated by detecting differences in DNA of bacterial populations in the more and less impacted sites throughout a year (late summer 2001 - late spring 2002). DNA was isolated from microbes in water samples from streams and rivers along the Delaware/Maryland border near Salisbury, MD. Using denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) analysis of community DNA, the dynamics of aquatic microbial communities was assessed. PCR was also used to detect the presence of resistance genes of several antibiotics in the water samples.