Quantifying Spatial AMR Patterns across Urban and Rural Landscapes

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Antimicrobial resistance is increasing in nature and threatens the effectiveness of our drug therapies and infection control. However, it remains difficult to distinguish what originates from human activities or what is natural. Therefore, we must extend the scale and depth monitoring efforts to better understand what is driving the increases in resistance traits. This project will use two collections of previously characterised soils to compare and contrast distributions of AR genes under widely varying conditions, ranging from urban, agriculture, legacy mining, and pristine rural environments. The project will utilise DNA extractions and new genetic technology to quantify over 230 AR genes in the samples. Soil inventories provide us well-characterised soils and the wealth of information that describes both the soils and the impacts at source locations.The project will generate an astonishing 120,000 AR-related data points (400 locations x 300 genes), each with extended background information on environmental conditions-creating among the largest geographic representation of AR gene distribution across landscapes ever created; sufficiently detailed to make cross-cutting observations of landscape effects on acquired vs innate AR levels. With advanced multi-parametric statistics, we will relate specific environmental conditions and factors with observed AR genes levels in soils to identify risk factors associated resistance development and impacts on human and agricultural health.