Systematic analysis of occurrence, density and ecological risks of 45 veterinary antibiotics: Focused on family livestock farms in Erhai Lake basin, Yunnan, China

Abstract

Antibiotic pollution from family animal farms is often neglected, but the waste from these farms usually caused more harm to the surroundings because arbitrary discharge without effective disposal. The pollution status and ecological risks of 45 veterinary antibiotics on 33 family animal farms in Dali city, Erhai Lake basin of China, were firstly delivered. The results showed that antibiotic contamination was prevalent in different environmental mediums (feed, manure, wastewater and soil) on these family farms. Manure had highest antibiotic levels among all the environmental mediums. Tetracyclines (TCs) usually had higher concentrations (ND-404.95 mg/kg) than the other classes, among which chlorotetracycline (CTC) was the dominant type. Among different animal species, target 13 pig farms had the highest antibiotic concentrations, the most total types and unique types of antibiotics, which were followed by target 11 chicken farms then target 9 cattle farms. The antibiotic densities of animal waste were calculated by per animal, which showed that pig waste presented high density; and family chicken farms were characterized by quinolone antibiotics (QAs) and macrolide antibiotics (MAs) pollution. For the antibiotic ecological risks in effluent water, oxytetracycline (OTC), CTC, ofloxacin (OFL), enrofloxacin (ENR), ciprofloxacin (CIP) and sulfamethoxazole (SMX2) exhibited much more toxic effects on algae. OTC and doxycycline (DXC) posed high risk for invertebrate; while no antibiotic caused high ecological risk for fish. Some antibiotics were quantitatively detected in the soil but no antibiotic posed obvious ecological risks on soils. However, the interaction of synergistic or antagonistic effects between different antibiotics should be brought to the forefront. This study gave some information of antibiotic pollution on family livestock farms, which indicated that animal waste from family farms was indeed an important pollution source of antibiotics for the environment.

Keywords: Ecological risk; Family livestock farm; Veterinary antibiotic; Waste.

Graphical abstract

Fig. 1

Sample location for different farms (the number means sampling sequence).

Fig. 2

Total concentration of antibiotics for different animal species.

Fig. 3

Detection rates of antibiotics in different environmental mediums.

Fig. 4

Antibiotic densities by per animal in manure (a) and wastewater (b).

Fig. 5

Risk quotients of the detected antibiotics in water effluent to (a) algae, (b) invertebrate and (c) fish.

Fig. 6

Venn map of the antibiotic number for different animal species (a: feed; b: manure; c: wastewater; d: soil; N: total detected number).

Fig. 7

Detection characteristics of antibiotics in feed (a) and manure (b).