Regional-scale investigation for microbial competition-through-environment interactions modulating antibiotic resistance

Originating from a long history of competition between microbes, antibiotic resistance is a serious global health concern. To avoid the risk of antibiotic resistance, tremendous efforts have been directed towards restricting antibiotic consumption worldwide, but to date with limited success. Resistance is governed by multiple pressures from natural and anthropogenic origins which further create problems with control. This study identifies a chain of links from antibiotic resistant genes (ARGs) to microbial communities to environmental pressures in the surface sediments of forty-two lake clusters across the 1000-km Yangtze Basin of China, and attempts to expound on a control pathway for this resistance risk. Results show that eleven of the 670 bacterial families can be classified as antibiotic-resistant or nonresistant communities which antagonize each other. In natural systems, antagonistic competition controls the increase and decrease in ARGs. Superiority of antibiotic-resistant strains initiates a loss in microbial diversity associated with the prevalence of resistance risk. This study shows that, antibiotics shape the evolution of ARGs in resistant communities through a nonlinear role of orientor; other selected pressures serve as a facilitator to enhance the antibiotic resistance through an investigated chain of links. Furthermore, according to tolerances of the classified communities, abiogenetic development through temperature, salinity and Mg were identified and selected for study from seventy lake parameters. Linear feedbacks to selected pressures make the nonresistant communities outcompete the resistant communities, theoretically modulating the risk of antibiotic resistance. [Display omitted] •There is a competition between antibiotic-resistant and nonresistant bacterial communities.•Antagonistic competition between microbial communities is responsible for ARGs.•Temperature, salinity, and Mg act as accomplices to increase the risk of ARGs.•Antibiotics shape the evolution of ARGs in resistant communities nonlinearly