Environmental patterns are imposed on the population structure of Escherichia coli after fecal deposition.

ABSTRACT: The intestinal microbe Escherichia coli is subject to fecal deposition in secondary habitats, where it persists transiently, allowing for the opportunity to colonize new hosts. Selection in the secondary habitat can be postulated, but its impact on the genomic diversity of E. coli is unknown. Environmental selective pressure on extrahost E. coli can be revealed by landscape genetic analysis, which examines the influences of dispersal processes, landscape features, and the environment on the spatiotemporal distribution of genes in natural populations. We conducted multilocus sequence analysis of 353 E. coli isolates from soil and fecal samples obtained in a recreational meadow to examine the ecological processes controlling their distributions. Soil isolates, as a group, were not geneticall

SUBMITTER: Bergholz PW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3019742 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature