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Carriage of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in urban versus rural wild boars

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Abstract

The Western European population of wild boar (Sus scrofa) has increased its distribution over the past several decades, and some populations have colonized areas strongly influenced by human activity. Wild boars are known carriers of antibiotic-resistant bacteria acquired from the environment, and urban populations of wild boars may be more exposed than their rural counterparts. In this work, we compared the frequency of antibiotic resistance in indicator bacteria (Escherichia coli, Enterococcus faecalis, Enterococcus faecium) isolated from urban wild boars with that from rural wild boars in NE Spain. We further assessed whether bacterial isolates from the urban wild boars had a higher probability of showing antibiotic resistance when their host was highly associated to urban features. Seventy-two and 100 bacterial isolates from urban and rural habitat, respectively, were screened for antibiotic resistance against a set of antibiotics (13 per bacterial species). We found a significantly higher frequency of E. faecium showing resistance to tetracycline (70.0% vs 36.4%) and high-level resistance to streptomycin (30.0% vs 4.5%) in urban wild boars compared to rural wild boars (p < 0.05). E. faecalis was more frequently resistant to trimethoprim in urban than rural wild boars (33.3% vs 0.0%, p < 0.05). In isolates from urban origin, 55.6% of the likelihood of detecting antibiotic resistance depended only on the bacterial species, being more likely in the enterococci than in E. coli. These results suggest that urban wild boars may be more exposed to certain antibiotic-resistant bacteria or antibiotic resistance genes that they may acquire from the urban environment, although implications are uncertain.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the Collserola Natural Park staff for their help in obtaining the samples and information necessary for this work. E. Serrano (SFRH/BPD/96637/2013) and R. T. Torres (SFRH/BPD/112482/2015) were supported by a post-doctoral grant from Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal. R. Castillo-Contreras was supported by a PhD grant (2016FI_B 00425) co-financed by Generalitat de Catalunya (Secretaria d’Universitats i Recerca del Departament d’Economia i Coneixement) and European Social Fund (ESF).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wildlife Ecology & Health group (WE&H) and Servei d’Ecopatologia de Fauna Salvatge (SEFaS), Departament de Medicina i Cirurgia Animals, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Bellaterra, Spain

    Nora Navarro-Gonzalez, Raquel Castillo-Contreras, Gregorio Mentaberre, Santiago Lavín & Emmanuel Serrano

  2. BIOEPAR, INRA, Oniris, Université Bretagne Loire, 44307, Nantes, France

    Nora Navarro-Gonzalez

  3. GRI-BCN (Research Group on Infertility, Barcelona), Departament de Sanitat i Anatomia Animals, Facultat de Veterinària, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), Bellaterra, Spain

    Encarna Casas-Díaz

  4. Laboratoire de Comportement et Ecologie de la Faune Sauvage, INRA, Castanet-Tolosan, France

    Nicolas Morellet

  5. Centro de Vigilancia Sanitaria Veterinaria (VISAVET), Universidad Complutense, Madrid, Spain

    M. Concepción Porrero & Lucas Domínguez

  6. Departament de Biologia Animal, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

    Guillem Molina-Vacas

  7. Departamento de Biologia & CESAM, Universidade de Aveiro (UA), Aveiro, Portugal

    Rita T. Torres, Carlos Fonseca & Emmanuel Serrano

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  1. Nora Navarro-Gonzalez
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  2. Raquel Castillo-Contreras
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  3. Encarna Casas-Díaz
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  4. Nicolas Morellet
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  5. M. Concepción Porrero
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  9. Gregorio Mentaberre
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  11. Santiago Lavín
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Correspondence to Nora Navarro-Gonzalez.

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Navarro-Gonzalez, N., Castillo-Contreras, R., Casas-Díaz, E. et al. Carriage of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in urban versus rural wild boars. Eur J Wildl Res 64, 60 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-018-1221-y

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