Contamination of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in a typical marine aquaculture farm: source tracking of ARGs in reared aquatic organisms

Abstract

Although the prevalence and concentrations of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in aquaculture is receiving increasing scientific interest, there is little understanding of the direct sources and dissemination pathways of ARGs in marine aquaculture-reared organisms. This study investigated the dynamics of ARGs and the bacterial community throughout the rearing period in a typical marine aquaculture farm in South China. The results demonstrated that sul1 and qnrD were predominant in the sediment, and qnrD and qnrA were predominant in the intestinal tracts of shrimps. Network analysis showed that the chemical oxygen demand, total organic carbon, dissolved organic carbon, suspended solids, and total phosphorus were positively correlated with the predominant ARGs. The results of the network and source tracking analyses indicate that environmental factors and the bacterial community may drive the dissemination of ARGs dissemination in the environment and in shrimp reared by marine aquaculture, and sediment is the most direct and important medium in this dissemination. These results aid in improving our understanding of the sources, level, and dissemination of ARGs in marine aquaculture.

Keywords:

• Antibiotic resistance genes
• dissemination
• source tracking
• marine aquaculture

Conflicts of interest statement

There are no conflicts to declare.

Additional information

Funding

This study was funded by the Central Public-interest Scientific Institution Basal Research Fund, CAFS (NO. 2019ZY14), the Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC31602167, NSFC41501529), the Guangdong Provincial Special Fund For Modern Agriculture Industry Technology Innovation Teams (No. 2019KJ149), the Guangdong Special Fund for Economic Development Project (Modern Fisheries Development) [grant number 2019B12], the Natural Science Foundation of Guangdong Province (2016A030313143), and the China Agriculture Research System (CARS-48).