RESEARCH ARTICLE Bacteria richness and antibiotic-resistance in bats from a protected area in the Atlantic Forest of Southeastern Brazil VinõÂcius C. ClaÂudio1,2,3*, Irys Gonzalez2, Gedimar Barbosa1,2, Vlamir Rocha4, Ricardo Moratelli5, FabrõÂcio Rassy2 1 Centro de Ciências BioloÂgicas e da SauÂde, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, São Carlos, SP, Brazil, 2 FundacËão Parque ZooloÂgico de São Paulo, São Paulo, SP, Brazil, 3 Instituto de Biologia, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil, 4 Centro de Ciências AgraÂrias, Universidade Federal de São Carlos, Araras, SP, Brazil, 5 Fiocruz Mata AtlaÃntica, FundacËão Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, a1111111111 Brazil a1111111111
[email protected] a1111111111 * a1111111111 a1111111111 Abstract Bats play key ecological roles, also hosting many zoonotic pathogens. Neotropical bat microbiota is still poorly known. We speculate that their dietary habits strongly influence OPEN ACCESS their microbiota richness and antibiotic-resistance patterns, which represent growing and Citation: ClaÂudio VC, Gonzalez I, Barbosa G, Rocha serious public health and environmental issue. Here we describe the aerobic microbiota V, Moratelli R, Rassy F (2018) Bacteria richness richness of bats from an Atlantic Forest remnant in Southeastern Brazil, and the antibiotic- and antibiotic-resistance in bats from a protected area in the Atlantic Forest of Southeastern Brazil. resistance patterns of bacteria of clinical importance. Oral and rectal cavities of 113 bats PLoS ONE 13(9): e0203411. https://doi.org/ from Carlos Botelho State Park were swabbed. Samples were plated on 5% sheep blood 10.1371/journal.pone.0203411 and MacConkey agar and identified by the MALDI-TOF technique.