U.S.- Chile Cooperative Research: Anthropogenic Influences on the Environmental Dissemination of Bacteria and Bacterial Genes

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0405419SingerThis U.S.-Chile award will provide support for Dr. Randall Singer, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, to collaborate with Dr. Gerardo E. Gonzalez-Rocha, Universidad de Concepcion in Chile. Partial support for this project comes from the Biocomplexity in the Environment (BE) Program.The PIs will work on anthropogenic influences on the environmental dissemination of bacteria and bacterial genes. The focus of this project is on the ecological processes by which E. coli disperse into complex natural environments. They will also look at factors that are hypothesized to increase the diversity, antimicrobial resistance, and virulence of these bacteria. Through an ecosystem-based study in a rural environment, they will assess the relationships among specific anthropogenic changes, other environmental and sociological parameters, and changes in the diversity, resistance and virulence of E. coli. This activity will increase our understanding of how anthropogenic environmental changes facilitate the emergence of novel pathogens in a relevant and important ecological setting. It will aid in the development of methods for linking microbiological, epidemiological and ecological data into a dissemination/dispersal model.