Ecological Structure of Public Transport Microbiocoenosis

The microbiological pattern of the salons of urban public transport is described for the first time with 41 buses of 16 routes as examples. According to orographic features of the Nizhny Novgorod city, all the bus routes were split into three model groups, namely: the high-bank one, the low-bank one, and the inter-district one. The abundance and species composition of microorganisms were estimated using a MALDI mass spectrometer Autoflex (Bruker Daltonics, Germany) and the BioTyper software. 85 microorganism species were detected, identified and assigned to one of the following three groups according to their degree of pathogenicity, namely: 1) conditionally pathogenic microorganisms, often causing infectious diseases; 2) conditionally pathogenic microorganisms causing infectious diseases rarely, and 3) non-pathogenic microorganisms. To characterize the ecological structure of the microbial community of urban public transport, two similarity indices were calculated, namely, Sorensen’s index and Koch’s biotic dispersion index. The species composition was analyzed at two hierarchical levels of the bus route groups (the intragroup and intergroup ones). At the intragroup level, a small number (1-3) of common species were found in each route group represented by S. epidermidis, S. haemolyticus and Acinetobacter lwoffii, which corresponds to a low Koch index value (0.1). At the intergroup level, just 15 common species of microorganisms were found, which corresponds to the value of Koch’s index calculated for the three route groups (0.26). In other words, 26% of species were common for the three route groups analyzed. All the three groups of microorganisms were represented most fully in the inter-district route group, namely: Group 1 - 45%, Group 2 - 53.8%, and Group 3 - 58.1%. Community structure analysis carried out with few ecological indices (Shannon’s species diversity index, Simpson’s index of dominance, Margalefs species richness index, and Pielou’s species evenness index) showed that an increase in the specific diversity of microbial communities is accompanied by a regular decrease in dominance and an increase in evenness. Analysis of the group of dominant species identified in the buses of the three route groups revealed that the species similarity of the dominant species, estimated by the value of Koch’s index, was only 0.14, which could be explained by the presence of only one common species (Acinetobacter lwof-fii). Studies of the microbial community of urban transport present a perspective for solving the sanitary, hygienic and environmental aspects of the integrated problem of ensuring the ecological safety of the urban environment.

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