Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-9-2018

Publication Title

Ecosphere

Volume

9

Issue

1

Pages

16

Abstract

Residues of pharmaceuticals are increasingly detected in surface waters throughout the world. In four streams in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, we detected analgesics, stimulants, antihistamines, and antibiotics using passive organic samplers. We exposed biofilm communities in these streams to the common drugs caffeine, cimetidine, ciprofloxacin, and diphenhydramine. Respiration rates in the least urban stream were suppressed when exposed to these drugs, but biofilm functioning in the most urban stream was resistant to drug exposure. Exposure to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin altered bacterial community composition at all sites, with the greatest change occurring in the most urban stream. These results indicated that continuous exposure to drugs in urban streams may select for sub‐populations of highly resistant bacteria that maintain community function in response to urban contaminants.

Comments

Author Posting. © The Authors 2018. This article is posted here for personal use, not for redistribution. The article was published in Ecopshere, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1002/ecs2.2041

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

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