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Microbial Ecology and Health Risk in Human Activity Sites

A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 March 2023) | Viewed by 4985

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Department of Microbiology and Immunobiology, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Kazimierz Wielki University, 85-090 Bydgoszcz, Poland
Interests: general microbiology; environmental microbiology; microbial ecology

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Microorganisms are an integral part of the environment. They fulfil many key functions responsible for the ecological stability of ecosystems. However, the ecology of microorganisms is heavily determined by anthropogenic activity. Rapidly increasing anthropopressure leads to the modification of entire ecosystems, which in turn affects the functioning of microorganisms. As a result, the natural values of these ecosystems can be considerably reduced. Human activity may negatively affect environmental health, but it can also be seen in public spaces. This happens because it has an enormous impact on the epidemiological safety and microbiological quality of all types of environments (water, soil, air). Constantly developing industry and agriculture, together with rapid urbanization, lead to xenobiotic contamination, followed by the decline in microbiodiversity, the emergence of sanitary risks, the acquisition of antibiotic resistance, and many other problems. Therefore, there is a need for a constant updating of our knowledge of human impacts on microbiological processes observed in the natural environment and the possibilities of counteracting the negative consequences of anthropopressure.

This Special Issue on "Microbial Ecology and Health Risk in Human Activity Sites" in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is aimed at drawing attention to the human impact on microbial ecology and the resulting health consequences. We invite all researchers in this field to submit their unpublished manuscripts on the subject. 

Dr. Łukasz Kubera
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2500 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • microbial ecology
  • environmental microbiology
  • anthropogenic pressure
  • environmental pollution
  • sanitary threat
  • antimicrobial resistance
  • microbial diversity
  • microbial activity
  • pathogens
  • xenobiotics

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 1749 KiB  
Article
Prevalence of Antimicrobial Resistance and Respective Genes among Bacillus spp., a Versatile Bio-Fungicide
by Pari Wash, Asiya Batool, Shah Mulk, Shabnum Nazir, Humaira Yasmin, Saqib Mumtaz, Mohammed Nasser Alyemeni, Prashant Kaushik and Muhammad Nadeem Hassan
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(22), 14997; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph192214997 - 14 Nov 2022
Cited by 7 | Viewed by 2354
Abstract
The plant rhizosphere is not only a reservoir of microbes but also a hub of antimicrobial resistance genes. Rhizospheric Bacillus spp. are the potential bio-inoculants with a versatile application in agriculture as bio-fertilizer and bio-fungicide. In the current study, the potential bio-control agent [...] Read more.
The plant rhizosphere is not only a reservoir of microbes but also a hub of antimicrobial resistance genes. Rhizospheric Bacillus spp. are the potential bio-inoculants with a versatile application in agriculture as bio-fertilizer and bio-fungicide. In the current study, the potential bio-control agent that is the Bacillus species (n = 7) was screened for the antimicrobial resistance pattern to assess their risk before registering them as a bio-inoculant. All of the Bacillus spp. were categorized as multi-drug-resistant (MDR), bacteria but none of them was either pan-drug-resistant (PDR) or extensive-drug-resistant (XDR). The multiple antimicrobial resistance (MAR) index of Bacillus spp. was higher than the critical value (0.2). The Bacillus spp. showed resistance to antimicrobial classes such as β lactam, macrolides, sulfonamides, tetracycline, aminoglycosides, and lincosamide. Various antimicrobial resistance genes, namely VmiR, ImrB, tetL, mphK, ant-6, penp, and bla OXA, associated with different mechanisms of resistance, were also detected in Bacillus spp. The Bacillus spp. also showed stress-tolerance traits such as ACC deaminase and EPS activity except the strains MAZ-117 and FZV-34, respectively. A significant correlation was observed between the PGPR and antimicrobial resistance, which shows that they may have adapted drug-resistance mechanisms to tolerate the environmental stress. These findings suggest that bio-fungicidal Bacillus spp. could be used very carefully on a commercial scale. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Ecology and Health Risk in Human Activity Sites)
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17 pages, 4014 KiB  
Article
Water as a Source of Indoor Air Contamination with Potentially Pathogenic Aeromonas hydrophila in Aquaculture
by Iwona Gołaś, Mariusz Szmyt and Katarzyna Glińska-Lewczuk
Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(4), 2379; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19042379 - 18 Feb 2022
Cited by 10 | Viewed by 1913
Abstract
Human activities influence the presence of potentially pathogenic bacteria in indoor air. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the experimental rearing of European grayling and European perch in a recirculating aquaculture system on the contamination of indoor air [...] Read more.
Human activities influence the presence of potentially pathogenic bacteria in indoor air. The aim of this study was to determine the effect of the experimental rearing of European grayling and European perch in a recirculating aquaculture system on the contamination of indoor air with potentially pathogenic Aeromonas hydrophila (PPAH) and the resulting health risks to humans. The PPAH counts, their resistance to seven antibiotics, and the multiple antibiotic resistance (MAR) index were determined in samples of indoor air and water from rearing tanks. The PPAH counts were highest in the laboratory bioaerosol where two fish species were reared. The calculated indoor/outdoor ratio (I/O > 1) demonstrated that tank water was the internal source of PPAH emissions. The unconstrained PCA revealed strong positive relationships (p ≤ 0.05) between the PPAH counts in the indoor air and water samples. Most of the PPAH strains isolated from laboratory air were resistant to tetracycline, cefotaxime, and erythromycin, and 26–82% of the isolates exhibited multiple drug resistance. The values of the MAR index were similar in samples of laboratory air and water (0.23–0.34 and 0.24–0.36, respectively). Agglomerative clustering revealed two clusters of strains isolated from laboratory air and tank water. The results of this study indicate that aquaculture can be a source of indoor air contamination with PPAH. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Microbial Ecology and Health Risk in Human Activity Sites)
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