2014 Swine CAFO Study SE for Agricultural Antibiotic Resistance in Mississippi State, Mississippi

2014 Swine CAFO Study SE for Agricultural Antibiotic Resistance in Mississippi State, Mississippi The environmental influence of farm management in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) can yield vast changes to the microbial biota and ecological structure of both the pig and waste manure lagoon wastewater. While some of these changes may not be negative, it is possible that CAFOs can enrich antibiotic resistant bacteria or pathogens based on farm type, thereby influencing the impact imparted by the land application of its respective wastewater. The purpose of this study was to measure the microbial constituents of swine-sow, -nursery, and -finisher farm manure lagoon wastewater and determine the changes induced by farm management. A total of 37 farms were visited in the Mid-South USA and analyzed for the genes 16S rRNA, spaQ (Salmonella spp.), Camp-16S (Campylobacter spp.), tetA, tetB, ermF, ermA, mecA, and intI using quantitative PCR. Additionally, 16S rRNA sequence libraries were created. Overall, it appeared that finisher farms were significantly different from nursery and sow farms in nearly all genes measured and in 16S rRNA clone libraries. Nearly all antibiotic resistance genes were detected in all farms. Interestingly, the mecA resistance gene (e.g. methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) was below detection limits on most farms, and decreased as the pigs aged. Finisher farms generally had fewer antibiotic resistance genes, which corroborated previous phenotypic data; additionally, finisher farms produced a less diverse 16S rRNA sequence library. Comparisons of Camp-16S and spaQ GU (genomic unit) values to previous culture data demonstrated ratios from 10 to 10,000:1 depending on farm type, indicating viable but not cultivatable bacteria were dominant. The current study indicated that swine farm management schemes positively and negatively affect microbial and antibiotic resistant populations in CAFO wastewater which has future “downstream” implications from both an environmental and public health perspective.


Resources in this dataset:


Data and Resources

Field Value
accessLevel public
accrualPeriodicity irregular
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catalog_describedBy https://project-open-data.cio.gov/v1.1/schema/catalog.json
identifier 10113/AA23368
license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
modified 2024-02-13
old-spatial {"type": "Point", "coordinates": [-88.802932, 33.453255]}
programCode {005:040}
publisher Agricultural Research Service
resource-type Dataset
source_datajson_identifier true
source_hash 9f068154eaac7fd6cf069fbf4e15d87c4e705e0c4de1f9dba750b8d471d1c3eb
source_schema_version 1.1
spatial {"type": "Point", "coordinates": [-88.802932, 33.453255]}
temporal 2008-01-01/2010-01-01
Groups
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • National Provider
  • North America
Tags
  • AmeriGEO
  • AmeriGEOSS
  • CKAN
  • GEO
  • GEOSS
  • National
  • North America
  • United States
  • antibiotic-resistance
  • antibiotic-resistance-genes
  • ars
  • data-gov
  • environment
  • farming
  • np211
  • np212
  • pig
  • resistance
isopen True
license_id cc-by
license_title Creative Commons Attribution
license_url http://www.opendefinition.org/licenses/cc-by
maintainer Brooks, John
maintainer_email john.brooks@usda.gov
metadata_created 2025-09-24T02:33:48.075180
metadata_modified 2025-09-24T02:33:48.075190
notes <p>2014 Swine CAFO Study SE for Agricultural Antibiotic Resistance in Mississippi State, Mississippi The environmental influence of farm management in concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFO) can yield vast changes to the microbial biota and ecological structure of both the pig and waste manure lagoon wastewater. While some of these changes may not be negative, it is possible that CAFOs can enrich antibiotic resistant bacteria or pathogens based on farm type, thereby influencing the impact imparted by the land application of its respective wastewater. The purpose of this study was to measure the microbial constituents of swine-sow, -nursery, and -finisher farm manure lagoon wastewater and determine the changes induced by farm management. A total of 37 farms were visited in the Mid-South USA and analyzed for the genes 16S rRNA, spaQ (Salmonella spp.), Camp-16S (Campylobacter spp.), tetA, tetB, ermF, ermA, mecA, and intI using quantitative PCR. Additionally, 16S rRNA sequence libraries were created. Overall, it appeared that finisher farms were significantly different from nursery and sow farms in nearly all genes measured and in 16S rRNA clone libraries. Nearly all antibiotic resistance genes were detected in all farms. Interestingly, the mecA resistance gene (e.g. methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus) was below detection limits on most farms, and decreased as the pigs aged. Finisher farms generally had fewer antibiotic resistance genes, which corroborated previous phenotypic data; additionally, finisher farms produced a less diverse 16S rRNA sequence library. Comparisons of Camp-16S and spaQ GU (genomic unit) values to previous culture data demonstrated ratios from 10 to 10,000:1 depending on farm type, indicating viable but not cultivatable bacteria were dominant. The current study indicated that swine farm management schemes positively and negatively affect microbial and antibiotic resistant populations in CAFO wastewater which has future “downstream” implications from both an environmental and public health perspective.</p> <div><br>Resources in this dataset:</div><br><ul><li><p>Resource Title: GeoData catalog record.</p> <p>File Name: Web Page, url: <a href="https://geodata.nal.usda.gov/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/651220ea-a65e-43a1-9c28-433c27464cae" target="_blank">https://geodata.nal.usda.gov/geonetwork/srv/eng/catalog.search#/metadata/651220ea-a65e-43a1-9c28-433c27464cae</a> </p></li></ul>
num_resources 1
num_tags 18
title 2014 Swine CAFO Study SE for Agricultural Antibiotic Resistance in Mississippi State, Mississippi