Pa g e 8
Fo r e Yo u r I n fo r m at io n
Duck Duck Turtle
Antibiotic Immunity Transmission to Algae by Patrick Simmsgeiger, CLM
During these uncertain times related to Covid-19, there are still things we can do to prepare our businesses and properties for the new-norm which is certainly around the corner. Although this piece may initially add to your list of concerns, hope springs eternal that knowledge can be acted upon, and good stewards can make difficult decisions to protect all stake holders. I remember my mother refusing to get a turtle for me as a pet. She understood that turtles transmitted salmonella, but she probably had no idea baby turtles also transmitted hepatitis-B. She told me not to touch the ducks in the neighborhood lake. She probably heard they hosted alphaherpes virus, which caused high mortality rates in ducks, geese and swans. This disease first appeared in Long Island in 1967, transmitted from European flocks. In the last 50 years, these health threats have spread worldwide and normalized in the public mind. There is emerging evidence that turtles, ducks and geese, adapted to the diseases they carry, spread antibiotic-resistant bacteria. As an aquatic expert, what keeps me awake some nights is the possibility these bacterial strains could transfer their resistance to water algae. Ducks and turtles are as ubiquitous to water environments as shells on a beach. These water species excrete waste with bacterium, which settles into soil already laced with antibiotic run-off from human activity. This long-term buildup becomes a habitat for new generations of bacteria. In a scientific study of a Meat Duck Farm conducted in 2017, the data indicated that the deeper the excrement layers, and the longer these layers went without removal, the more numerous the antibioticresistant bacterial species, plus the greater number of antibiotics to which these species showed resistance. These bacteria also evolved resistance to Zinc, Copper and Cadmium. Copper is the primary element used to control algae and cyanobacteria in
water. A Harmful Algal Bloom(HAB) is the result of runaway algae and cyanobacteria growth when heat and nutrient loading are abundant, and eco -diversity is low. HABs can be extremely toxic. Could algae learn antibiotic and copper resistance from bacteria? Algae are in every environment on the Earth, having emerged as a simpler species about 1.7 billion years ago. Bacteria existed a couple billion years before that. Cyanobacteria preceded these by about 1 billion years, being the first life on this planet. Clearly these species learned or stole abilities from each other, then continued to evolve to the present day. It would be very unlikely that this adaptive behavior has suddenly come to a stop. More likely, these microorganisms are reacting to human activity, feeding on modern waste, adapting to our chemicals, while they continue to compete and learn from one another. Microorganisms comprise the vast majority of biomass, which has always been true and will probably always be true; humans are a recent experiment. Many aquatic companies that treat algae promise to eradicate the problem. The fact is, algae colonies cannot be completely eliminated, only limited in size and reproduction by using proper tools and procedures. Not only are there immense varieties of algae and bacteria adapted to every environment, but
each cell of a species has the capability to create a daughter with new characteristics. If human teenage girls are tough, they have nothing on microorganisms. According to a recent estimate, there are about one trillion species of microbes on Earth, and 99.99 % of them have yet to be classified. Clearly, microorganisms have no problem evolving through adaption, with the newer species adapted to consume the most abundant form of nutrients, while resisting threats that limited their mother cells. Once we accept the possibility of an inter-species exchange of resistance, what is the possibility this new algae strain would move out of its home pond? The same bird groups that excrete large amounts of waste also move from lake to lake. Birds visit all the water features in their territory but have a favorite spot; turtles