1. INTRODUCTION
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the major Global Health
challenges of the 21st century, and annually kills thousands of people
in the world (Cassini et al., 2019; Hernando-Amado, Coque, Baquero, &
MartÃnez, 2019). One Health and Global Health approaches are necessaries
to combat the emergence, evolution and spread of AMR (Hernando-Amado et
al. , 2019). In this regard, wildlife has been suggested as
reservoirs, disseminators or bio-indicators of AMR in the environment
(Borges et al., 2017; Dolejska & Literak, 2019;Sacristán et al. ,
2020); however, threatened wildlife species are being colonized by
antibiotic resistant bacteria, but there are critical data gaps and
research needs to understand the role and the real impact of AMR on
wildlife (Larsson et al. , 2018; Fuentes-Castillo et al., 2020;
Ramey & Ahlstrom, 2020).
The Brazilian merganser (Mergus octosetaceus Vieillot, 1817) is
one of the most threatened avian species in the Americas and one of the
most threatened waterfowl in the world, classified as Critically
Endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (Lamas
& Lins, 2009; BirdLife International, 2019). It is estimated that its
population does not exceed 250 mature individuals in nature but, thanks
to conservation breeding programs, it has been possible to successfully
reproduce the species ex-situ (BirdLife International, 2019).
In this study, using microbiological and whole genome sequencing tools,
we investigated a fatal sepsis caused by an antibiotic-resistant
bacterium in a critically endangered Brazilian merganser. In this
regard, the resistome (antibiotics, heavy metals, and disinfectants),
virulome, and epidemiological characteristics of the pathogen were
analyzed.