Publications by authors named "Amber M Koskey"
Untreated sewage discharges and limited agricultural manure management practices contribute to fecal pollution in rural Brazilian waterways. Most microbial source tracking studies have focused on Bacteroidales, and few have tested host-specific indicators in underdeveloped regions. Sequencing of sewage and human and animal feces with Illumina HiSeq revealed Prevotellaceae as the most abundant family in humans, with Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae also comprising a large proportion of the microbiome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The relationship between poor sanitation and the parasitic infection schistosomiasis is well-known, but still rarely investigated directly and quantitatively. In a Brazilian village we correlated the spatial concentration of human fecal contamination of its main river and the prevalence of schistosomiasis.
Methods: We validated three bacterial markers of contamination in this population by high throughput sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene and qPCR of feces from local residents.
Article Synopsis
- Gulls are common at beaches and contribute significantly to fecal contamination, harboring high levels of fecal indicator bacteria like E. coli and enterococci.
- Researchers analyzed gull fecal samples using advanced sequencing technologies, discovering that Enterococcaceae and Enterobacteriaceae were the most prevalent bacterial families, with Catellicoccus marimammalium being the most abundant taxon.
- While typical culture methods showed a high presence of Enterococcus spp., sequencing revealed C. marimammalium in much greater quantities, making it a valuable marker for detecting gull fecal pollution at beaches.