Yeasts in Feces of Pigeons ( Columba livia ) in the City of Moscow
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Yeasts in Feces of Pigeons (Columba livia) in the City of Moscow Anna M. Glushakova1,2 · Evgenia N. Rodionova2 · Aleksey V. Kachalkin1,3 Received: 22 April 2020 / Accepted: 12 October 2020 © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The yeast number and species diversity in feces of pigeons (Columba livia) were studied in various locations of the city of Moscow: parks, playgrounds and school grounds. The total number and species composition of yeasts in feces depended on the isolation temperature. The average yeast number at a cultivation temperature of 25 °C was 3.2 × 105 CFU/g, at 37 °C–2.5 × 106 CFU/g. At 37 °C, the number of yeasts was higher due to a more abundant growth of pathogenic and opportunistic yeast species. In total, 13 species of yeasts were isolated from feces: eight ascomycetes and five basidiomycetes. The study revealed high values of relative abundance and frequency of occurrence of pathogenic species Candida albicans and opportunistic yeasts, i.e. Diutina catenulata, Millerozyma farinosa, Pichia kudriavzevii, and Trichosporon asahii. Pigeon feces were found to present a constant source of “infection” of the urban environment with yeast species that are hazardous to human health, especially for immunosuppressive individuals.
Introduction The city is a very complex urban ecosystem. Maintaining its cleanliness and hygiene standards is the most important task, without which the human life in the city would be impossible. One of the most serious threats for hygiene in the city is the waste coming from synanthropic birds. Birds play a significant role in the spread of microorganisms in the environment. Excrements of synanthropic, wild and migratory birds in the city are a source of a wide variety of pathogenic and potentially pathogenic types of microorganisms, including pathogenic yeasts, e.g. Cryptococcus neoformans and Candida albicans, that cause human infections cryptococcosis and candidiasis [1–7]. In their natural and urban environments, birds play one of the major roles in spreading of pathogenic microorganisms and are a reservoir for their multiplication. It has been shown that the diversity of pathogens in urban synanthropic birds is wider than in wild ones [8]. Active studies of the * Aleksey V. Kachalkin [email protected] 1
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia 119991
2
Mechnikov Research Institute of Vaccines and Sera, Moscow, Russia 105064
3
Skryabin Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms, Pushchino, Russia 142290
yeast diversity in various substrates in the Moscow city agglomeration in recent years showed that pathogenic and opportunistic yeast species of the genus Candida actively develop in a variety of substrates and locations in the megalopolis [9–11]. In the city of Moscow they were found in the endophytic yeast community of juicy fruits of pears and apples growing under high anthropogenic impact along the city highways [9], on pollen of wind-pollinated plants [10], and in city soils, primarily
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