Are aquatic snails reservoirs and vectors of microbes bearing antibiotic resistant genes
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The role of Stagnicola elodes, a freshwater snail, as a reservoir and vector for transporting antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) was explored under laboratory conditions. We hypothesized that ARG-bearing microorganisms would become part of the snail gut microbiome allowing ARGs to be spread from their initial point of origin should snails be transported or the input of pharmaceuticals cease. We exposed snails in jars for 14 days wherein they grazed on biofilms that contained microbes resistant to the antibiotic sulfamethoxazole (SMX). Snails were then transferred to fresh media with no SMX for either a 7-day hibernation or depuration period. SMX-related ARGs were quantified in the 14-day treatment and 7-day depuration and hibernation systems. On day 14, treated jars had 6.6% of SMX resistant genes in the water phase, and the 7-day hibernation and depuration vessels had an average of 3.9% and 1.4%, respectively, relative to the total water-borne microbial community. Methods of extracting snail samples for SMX-related ARGs were unsuccessful. This was attributed to the snails’ having extensive mucus sugars that interfere with extraction. Our findings suggest that ARGs could be transferred to new environments from snails excreting gut flora in their feces, warranting further investigation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".