A brown bear in Sweden OndrejProsicky/Getty Images
The history of antibiotic resistance and human antibiotic use is documented in the mouth bacteria of wild bears from Sweden.
Untreated wastewater can allow antibiotics to leak into the environment. They are widely used in medicine and agriculture. Wild animals may then come in contact with contaminated water, soil, or food sources and can play a part in the development of antibiotic resistance.
Jaelle Brealey (then at Uppsala University, Sweden) and her colleagues sequenced oral microbiomes to track changes in antibiotic resistance.
