Yameen Badrodien
M.Sc candidate; University of the Western Cape
My name is Yameen Badrodien, and I have been employed by the Western Cape Provincial Vet Lab since 2019. I was inducted into the Western Cape Department of Agriculture’s Young Professionals Programme in 2018, which is awarded to post graduate studies focusing on agriculture. My masters research is focused on assessing the impact of wild and domestic animal integration on soil microbial community composition, and the impact thereof on the prevalence and distribution of disease causing bacteria, which have the potential to incur health and economic losses at a commercial livestock farm and wildlife conservancy in the Karoo Region of South Africa. We aimed to achieve the aforementioned by targeting the 16S rRNA gene, and the application of high throughput (NGS) technologies. During my tenure as a Masters student I have also been actively engaged in investigating bacterial microbiomes present within estuarine environments, where I have offered technical assistance with the downstream analyses of 16s rRNA sequences.
Abstract
As agricultural activities in South Africa continue to intensify, wildlife farming continues to gain popularity among farmers within the sector. Although the adoption of this strategy has improved economic growth and development, it has elevated the risk of zoonotic disease transmission between wildlife and livestock. While a wealth of information exists for emerging and reemerging zoonotic diseases, the dynamics of disease transmission between livestock and wildlife remains poorly understood. This is concerning as environmental conflicts between domestic populations and wildlife are capable of compromising both agricultural productivity and human health. This study was aimed at elucidating bacterial community composition of wildlife and livestock populations at a commercial farm and conservancy in Beaufort West, South Africa using 16S rRNA Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). Our results showed no differences in bacterial diversity between wildlife and livestock populations. There was however a tendency for livestock bacterial assemblages to dominate the interface between the two populations. Our analysis also led to the detection of five pathogenic bacterial strains: Eschericia coli, Egerthella lenta, Clostridum gasigenes, Lactobacillus acidophilus and Exiguobacterium sibiricum, some of which carry a human health risk and ability to compromise economic activities at the farm.