2026-06-29T07:47:05Zhttps://docta.ucm.es/rest/oai/request

oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/1366972026-05-13T23:47:09Zcom_20.500.14352_14col_20.500.14352_15

Acinetobacter baumannii’s lifestyle includes soil-dwelling colonization of decaying plant material and airborne spread Wilharm, Gottfried Skiebe, Evelyn Michalska, Andżelina Higgins, Paul G. Weber, Kristin Schaudinn, Christoph Neugebauer, Christof Görlitz, Katharina Meimers, Gideon Rizova, Yana Blaschke, Ulrike Heider, Christine Cuny, Christiane Drewes, Stephan Heuser, Elisa Jeske, Kathrin Jacob, Jens Ulrich, Rainer G. Bocheński, Marcin Kasprzak, Mariusz Burda, Ewa Ciepliński, Mateusz Kaługa, Ireneusz Jankowiak, Łukasz Aguirre De Miguel, José Ignacio López García, Alejandro Höfle, Ursula Jagiello, Zuzanna Tobółka, Marcin Janic, Bartosz Zieliński, Piotr Kamiński, Maciej Frisch, Johannes Siekiera, Joachim Wendel, Andreas F. Brauner, Paul Jäckel, Udo Kaatz, Michael Müller, Stefanie Lübke-Becker, Antina Wieler, Lothar H. von Wachsmann, Johanna Thrukonda, Lakshmipriya Helal, Mustafa Epping, Lennard Wolf, Silver A. Semmler, Torsten Jerzak, Leszek 579 598.244 581.5 616.9 Bacterial evolution Bacterial genomics Environmental microbiology Microbial ecology Pathogens Microbiología (Biología) Ecología (Biología) Aves Enfermedades infecciosas 2414 Microbiología 2417.13 Ecología Vegetal 2401.20 Ornitología 3205.05 Enfermedades Infecciosas We thank colleagues at the central DNA sequencing lab of the Robert Koch Institute for technical assistance. G.W. & P.G.H. acknowledge financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG-FOR 2251). A.M. acknowledges financial support from a traineeship within the ERASMUS+ Program (agreement no. 20/ SMP/2015/16). The collection of rats was funded by Deutsches Zentrum für Infektionsforschung (DZIF), thematic translational Unit (TTU) “Emerging Infections” to R.G.U.; the collection of other rodents was commissioned and funded by the Federal Environment Agency (UBA) within the Environment Research Plan of the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety (J.J., grant numbers 3716484310 and 3714674070). This publication made use of the Acinetobacter baumannii MLST website (http://pubmlst.org/abaumannii/) hosted at the University of Oxford144. The development of this site has been funded by the Wellcome Trust. Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL. Acinetobacter baumannii is a Gram-negative nosocomial pathogen that is notorious for its rapid development of antibiotic resistance. However, its ecology and evolution outside hospital settings remain poorly defined. Here, we demonstrate that the natural lifestyle of A. baumannii includes soil-dwelling and airborne dissemination, which helps explaining its adaptability and tolerance to desiccation, radiation and antibiotics, and thus its predisposition to establish within hospitals. Starting from white stork nestlings previously discovered as a reservoir, we studied food chains and associated environments and identified soil and decaying plants as habitats. We demonstrate that sterilized plant material is rapidly colonized by airborne A. baumannii. A set of 401 genomes were sequenced and compared to publicly available genomes, revealing numerous links between wildlife isolates and hospital strains, and disclosing intercontinental dispersal. Our pan-genome estimate of the species (~51,000 gene families) more than doubles that of previous studies. Our data further suggest massive radiation of the species early after its emergence, possibly fostered by human activity since the Neolithic. Now, it is possible to study the ecology and evolution of A. baumannii in nature at an unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution and to elucidate the adaptive evolution of environmental bacteria towards multidrug-resistant opportunistic pathogens. Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft European Commission Deutsches Zentrum für Infektionsforschung Umweltbundesamt (Deutschland) Wellcome Trust (England) Hochschulrektorenkonferenz Depto. de Biodiversidad, Ecología y Evolución Fac. de Ciencias Biológicas TRUE pub 2026-05-13T11:47:22Z 2026-05-13T11:47:22Z 2026-03-10 journal article VoR https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/136697 2041-1723 10.1038/s41467-026-70072-4 eng Wilharm, G., Skiebe, E., Michalska, A., Higgins, P. G., Weber, K., Schaudinn, C., Neugebauer, C., Görlitz, K., Meimers, G., Rizova, Y., Blaschke, U., Heider, C., Cuny, C., Drewes, S., Heuser, E., Jeske, K., Jacob, J., Ulrich, R. G., Bocheński, M., et al. (2026). Acinetobacter baumannii’s lifestyle includes soil-dwelling colonization of decaying plant material and airborne spread. Nature Communications , 17(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/S41467-026-70072-4 Attribution 4.0 International http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ open access application/pdf Springer Nature