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FORCE OF NATURE 3

Sea

2 NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2015


Sick By Rebecca Kessler

A gang of drug-resistant infections, presumably on


the run from hospitals and landfills, is cropping up
in marine mammals, weaving a web of disease that
extends deep into the ocean

searchers are zeroing in on its possible


The whale lay dead on the concrete This was obviously one sick whale. causes, which range from hospital waste
lab floor, all 13 feet and 1,600 pounds Bogomolni noted a greenish froth to bacteria offloaded by beachgoers.
of him. He had washed up late the and congestion in the lungs, signs of Theyre also starting to worry that the
night before on a Massachusetts beach, a severe pneumonia. The brain of the pathogens may be sickening species
alive but very ill. Marine biologists whale was inflamed, its blood vessels already stressed by ship collisions,
from the New England Aquarium riddled with lesions, and its outer dwindling prey, and other problems.
made the call to euthanize him, then membrane hemorrhaging, indicating And one cutting-edge line of research
trucked the body 95 kilometers south another serious infection. has uncovered a more chilling possi-
to the necropsy laboratory at Woods bility: that a new, SARS-like pandemic
Hole Oceanographic Institution. But When the lab work came back a could rise from the sea and spread
this wasnt just any whale. It was a Cu- few days later, it revealed something among people.
viers beaked whale, a rarely glimpsed unexpected: a number of microorgan- Over the past decade or so, just
species that keeps to waters more than isms normally associated with infec- about everywhere scientists have
1,000 meters deep and is almost never tions in humans, not marine mammals. looked, theyve been discovering
spotted near the coast. Now, more than Equally intriguing, the whale was marine animals carrying microbes that
a dozen researchers from four institu- harboring several bacterial strains that ordinarily infect people. The influenza
tions were trying to piece together the were resistant to multiple antibiotics. B virus, for instance, is normally specif-
story behind its stranding. Did one of those eyebrow-raising bugs ic to humans but showed up in harbor
Marine veterinary scientist Michael cause the health problems that trig- seals in the Netherlands. Caspian seals
Moore led the necropsy, assisted by gered the whales stranding? were discovered carrying antibodies
research associate Andrea Bogomolni. Its impossible to say, but its clear to both influenza B and human strains
After inspecting marks on the skin, the that the unfortunate whale fits into an of influenza A. Atlantic bottlenose
team severed the head with a sharp ominous trend. Microbes that cause dolphins in South Carolina were found
knife and sent it into the next room stubborn infections in people are carrying the superbug methicillin-re-
for CT scanning. They then proceeded cropping up in marine animals with sistant Staphylococcus aureus. The list
inward to dissect and examine each of unsettling frequency. The study of this goes on, and marine mammals, seabirds,
the whale organ. phenomenon is in its infancy, but re- fish, and plenty of shellfish are on it.

illustration by Hajar Aldawood Astrovirus illustration: www.pnas.org FORCE OF NATURE 3


Not everyone is so reticent. Its
hard to be when youve got five dead
seal pups on your hands, victims of a
Pseudomonas strain resistant to every
standard antibiotic. The pups died this
spring in the care of Frances Gulland,
director of veterinary science at the
Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito,
California. Gulland says the centers
rehabilitation hospital took in the pups,
along with almost 100 others, because
their mothers had abandoned them
on the beach after they were disturbed
by people. The five pups developed
pneumonia and blood infections, and
Gullands team pinpointed Pseudomo-
nas as the infectious agent. They treated
the pups with several antibiotics in
succession, but nothing worked.
Image of a typical positron emission tomography (PET) facility She says she sees about ten such
cases a year in marine mammals
deaths by pneumonia, hemorrhagic
Still, no one knew how pervasive anthropogenic contamination is to diarrhea, or blood infections caused
the bugs might be throughout an blame. The reason? Widespread use of by bugs that used to be treatable. The
ecosystem. So in 2005, Moore, Bo- antibiotics in medicine and agricul- prevalence of antibiotic resistance in
gomolni, and their colleagues began ture has given rise to bacteria that are the offending microorganisms has
a pioneering, three-year study to see invulnerable to many drugs. These re- convinced Gulland that they must have
what animals in the waters along the sistant bacteria have started spilling into come from either a person or another
northeastern U.S. coast were carry- the environment and trickling into a land animal or have been exposed to
ing. The collection effort alone was variety of speciesindeed, resistant drug-laden pollution.
huge. Birds and mammals stranded or bacteria were rampant in the animals
inadvertently caught in fishing gear examined by the Woods Hole team. Ten cases a year may not sound
were shipped to Woods Hole from up Fifty-nine percent of the strains like much, but Gulland points out that
and down the coast. The team gathered they tested were resistant to at least one many more animals may be dying at
samples from a shark-fishing tourna- antibiotic, and a whopping 16 percent sea. And even if healthy populations
ment and from live animals on remote were resistant to five or more. The star can sustain a few extra mortalities,
shores. They necropsied lifeless whale of the show was found in a harp seal threatened ones may not. While the
hulks; swabbed and swiped away at with severe lung congestion: a strain overall data are scant, Gulland says, the
feces, blowholes, internal organs, and of Chryseobacterium indologenes, an evidence on hand suggests its time to
infected tissues; and sent samples off for agent of hospital-acquired infections in take pathogen pollution seriouslyes-
culturing or genetic screening. What people, that was resistant to 13 out of pecially when seen in the context of
came back was a list of dozens of bac- 16 antibiotics tested. (1, 2) The antibi- other contaminants that threaten ma-
teria known to infect people. otic resistance piece gives it a smell of rine mammals. She says, by the time
For a clue to the microbes origins, human impact, Moore says. you realize its a problem its going to
Moore and Bogomolnis team test- Still, the team interprets its findings be really extensive.
ed over half the bacterial strains for cautiously. Given that little is known So how might these bacteria make
resistance to human and veterinary about marine species microbiology, it the journey from a hospital to a whale
antibiotics. When such resistance shows could very well be that this is normal, living miles offshore? The biggest
up in force, it raises the possibility that says Rebecca Gast. potential pathways are familiar ones:

4 NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2015


sewers and runoff. For instance, scien- and dumps. From there, Ellis What we do to the
tists recently reported that sea otters in postulates, the gulls could carry
California host a variety of gut bacteria E. coli and other pathogens out ocean and the animals in
known to infect peopleand otters onto the beaches and waters of
living near heavily populated areas New England and possibly on it, we are ultimately also
or high-runoff flows had the greatest down to their Florida wintering
risk of infection. Freshwater runoff is grounds. (3) doing to ourselves
also thought to deliver two land-based
protozoan parasitesone shed by cats Some of the bacterial sourc- marine mammals must now consider
and the other by opossumsinto the es are even more unexpectedand that a bite or a scratch could result
sea, where they have been killing otters could change the way you look at in an infection resistant to a slew of
with fatal brain disease. your summertime beach vacation. Lisa antibiotics. More disturbingly, it means
But harmful microorganisms dont Plano of the University of Miamis that the ocean is awash in potentially
have to flow down a pipe or a stream. Miller School of Medicine has shown harmful bugs, and our own germs may
Julie Ellis, a Tufts University ecolo- that people can introduce microbes, be multiplying and traveling long dis-
gist who was a co-author in Moore including MRSA, straight into seawa- tances inside its animals. Its definitely
and Bogomolnis research, showed as ter by merely wading or swimming. out there in lots of our top-level preda-
much by studying the origin of E. Apparently, the water simply washes tors, and that means high levels of the
coli strains in the feces of gulls on a the microbes from your nose, your skin, food chain, says Jason Blackburn, an
Maine island. Shed tracked the gulls or wherever you happen to be carrying ecologist at the University of Florida
carefully and watched them engaging them. This has been going on for as who discovered sharks and fish car-
in a favorite pastime: hanging out and long as bacteria have been colonizing rying multi-drug-resistant bacteria in
foraging at local landfills and sewage people, Plano says. We just havent Louisiana, Massachusetts, Florida, and
lagoons. Thinking that the gulls could been looking for these things. Even so, Belize. (4) Thats not all that far from
be picking up more than just lunch, Plano emphasizes that theres no reason our dinner plates.
Ellis and her colleagues decided to see to avoid the beach, since your chances
of picking up a bug there are Put another way, we eat the same
very low. seafood and play in the same water
As for how terrestrial as marine mammals. Their immune
microbes may make their way systems and symptoms are similar to
into marine animals, there are ours. If theyre picking up infectious
Astrovirus Photo by GrahamColm

more questions than answers. microorganisms, theres a chance we


The animals could pick up could too. What we do to the ocean
terrestrial strains straight from and the animals in it, we are ultimately
the water or from prey. Then also doing to ourselves, says Gast, the
again, the animals could Woods Hole microbiologist.
pick up marine strains that This prospect of ocean-borne
have acquired resistance to illness is troubling enough. But what if
antibiotics from exposure to marine mammals are acting like petri
Electron micrograph of Astroviruses
waste-borne drugs, microbes. dishes, brewing up new pathogens that
Whether the animals go on to infect could jump back to land and sweep
whether they could trace the E. coli one another is another big unknown. through human populations? Thats the
the gulls were carrying back to the The sheer ubiquity of marine question Hendrik Nollens inadvertent-
lagoons and landfills in nearby New mammals carrying these bugs raises ly stumbled upon last year.
Hampshire. They collected feces from a growing concern for the health of A marine-animal veterinarian
the gulls at their island nests, and, sure human beings, even though cases of based at Hubbs-SeaWorld Research
enough, the E. coli strains inside bore a people being sickened from contact are Institute in San Diego, Nollens and his
striking genetic resemblance to strains rare. For starters, researchers and others colleagues have pushed the boundar-
they gathered from the treatment plants who come into regular contact with ies in figuring out how to diagnose

FORCE OF NATURE 5

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