Impacts of reclaimed water irrigation on soil antibiotic resistome in urban parks of Victoria, Australia

Abstract

The effluents from wastewater treatment plants have been recognized as a significant environmental reservoir of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs). Reclaimed water irrigation (RWI) is increasingly used as a practical solution for combating water scarcity in arid and semiarid regions, however, impacts of RWI on the patterns of ARGs and the soil bacterial community remain unclear. Here, we used high-throughput quantitative PCR and terminal restriction fragment length polymorphism techniques to compare the diversity, abundance and composition of a broad-spectrum of ARGs and total bacteria in 12 urban parks with and without RWI in Victoria, Australia. A total of 40 unique ARGs we..