Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest public health challenges in the world today since many common bacterial infections are developing resistance to the drugs once used to treat them, and new antibiotics aren’t being developed fast enough to combat the problem.
Once primarily confined to health care settings, these resistant strains of bacteria are now commonly found in other places, especially marine environments. To date, few studies have looked at long-term trends in antibiotic resistance in pathogens isolated from wildlife populations.
Researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in collaboration with Georgia Aquarium , the Medical University of South Carolina and Colorado State University, conducted a unique, long-term study (2003 to 2015) of antibiotic resistance among pathogens isolated from bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) in Florida’s Indian River Lagoon. This lagoon has a large coastal human population and significant environmental impacts.