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Listeria monocytogenes at the human–wildlife interface: black bears (Ursus americanus) as potential vehicles for Listeria |
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| Authors: | Cameron Parsons Jeff Niedermeyer Nicholas Gould Phillip Brown Jennifer Strules Arielle W Parsons J Bernardo Mesa-Cruz Marcella J Kelly Michael J Hooker Michael J Chamberlain Colleen Olfenbuttel Christopher DePerno Sophia Kathariou |
| Institution: | 1. Department of Food, Bioprocessing, and Nutrition Sciences, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA;2. Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA;3. Fisheries, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology, Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, Raleigh, NC, USA;4. Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA Department of Biology, Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA, USA;5. Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA, USA;6. Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA;7. North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Raleigh, NC, USA |
| Abstract: | Listeria monocytogenes is the causative agent of the foodborne illness listeriosis, which can result in severe symptoms and death in susceptible humans and other animals. L. monocytogenes is ubiquitous in the environment and isolates from food and food processing, and clinical sources have been extensively characterized. However, limited information is available on L. monocytogenes from wildlife, especially from urban or suburban settings. As urban and suburban areas are expanding worldwide, humans are increasingly encroaching into wildlife habitats, enhancing the frequency of human–wildlife contacts and associated pathogen transfer events. We investigated the prevalence and characteristics of L. monocytogenes in 231 wild black bear capture events between 2014 and 2017 in urban and suburban sites in North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and United States, with samples derived from 183 different bears. Of the 231 captures, 105 (45%) yielded L. monocytogenes either alone or together with other Listeria. Analysis of 501 samples, primarily faeces, rectal and nasal swabs for Listeria spp., yielded 777 isolates, of which 537 (70%) were L. monocytogenes. Most L. monocytogenes isolates exhibited serotypes commonly associated with human disease: serotype 1/2a or 3a (57%), followed by the serotype 4b complex (33%). Interestingly, approximately 50% of the serotype 4b isolates had the IVb-v1 profile, associated with emerging clones of L. monocytogenes. Thus, black bears may serve as novel vehicles for L. monocytogenes, including potentially emerging clones. Our results have significant public health implications as they suggest that the ursine host may preferentially select for L. monocytogenes of clinically relevant lineages over the diverse listerial populations in the environment. These findings also help to elucidate the ecology of L. monocytogenes and highlight the public health significance of the human–wildlife interface. |
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