Biology and Evolution of Symbiosis (BESymb)
If you are interested in cloacal swabs, bacterial culturing, and/or antimicrobial resistance, we’ve got you covered! In this collaborative venture published in Ecology and Evolution, isolated bacteria from Yellow-legged gull chicks were sequenced and screened for antimicrobial resistance genes. We found antimicrobial resistance genes in many Escherichia, Enterobacter, Citrobacter, Hafnia, Klebsiella, and Proteus. Importantly, this study revealed an increase in the diversity of resistant enterobacteria over time (hatching to fledging) in chicks. This increase in diversity was accompanied by an increase in the proportion of individuals carrying bacteria with antimicrobial resistance genes. There are three possible explanations for this observation: 1) food supply change, 2) parents, through time, might forage in different areas, and/or 3) an increasing number of exchanges with other chicks.