Geographical and Meteorological Factors Associated with Isolation of Listeria Species in New York State Produce Production and Natural Environments

Abstract

Listeria species have been isolated from diverse environments, often at considerable prevalence, and are known to persist in food processing facilities. The presence of Listeria spp. has been suggested to be a marker for Listeria monocytogenes contamination. Therefore, a study was conducted to (i) determine the prevalence and diversity of Listeria spp. in produce production and natural environments and (ii) identify geographical and/or meteorological factors that affect the isolation of Listeria spp. in these environments. These data were also used to evaluate Listeria spp. as index organisms for L. monocytogenes in produce production environments. Environmental samples collected from produce production (n = 588) and natural (n = 734) environments in New York State were microbiologically analyzed to detect and isolate Listeria spp. The prevalence of Listeria spp. was approximately 33 and 34% for samples obtained from natural environments and produce production, respectively. Co-isolation of L. monocytogenes and at least one other species of Listeria in a given sample was recorded for 3 and 9% of samples from natural environments and produce production, respectively. Soil moisture and proximity to water and pastures were highly associated with isolation of Listeria spp. in produce production environments, while elevation, study site, and proximity to pastures were highly associated with isolation of Listeria spp. in natural environments, as determined by randomForest models. These data show that Listeria spp. were prevalent in both agricultural and nonagricultural environments and that geographical and meteorological factors associated with isolation of Listeria spp. were considerably different between the two environments.

Permanent colonization of creek sediments, creek water and limnic water plants by fourListeriaspecies in low population densities

“…Moreover, slope gradients have been reported to impact the detection of Listeria in water samples [35,37,67]. We found no indication that pelagic cell counts of Listeria are higher than cell counts on water plants and in sediment at all areas sampled.…”

“…While a higher occurrence in fall, winter and spring periods was observed [40,42,43,71], contrary findings with a higher occurrence of Listeria spp. in the summer months have also been reported [37,72]. The overall species compositions of Listeria populations of water, water plants and sediments are shown in Figure 2.…”

“…L. monocytogenes has been isolated from different natural surroundings including soil [31,[33][34][35][36][37][38], vegetation [24,36,37], surface water [38][39][40][41][42][43][44] and wild animals [45][46][47][48]. In general, systematic studies concerning the occurrence of L. monocytogenes in soil and fresh water are rare.…”

Comanaging fresh produce for nature conservation and food safety

“…2). Previous work also has shown that generic E. coli (18), E. coli O157:H7 (27), Salmonella (28), and Listeria (29,30) are positively associated with livestock density or proximity to livestock. Similarly, studies that have aggregated reported EHEC illnesses to county or district levels have generally observed higher EHEC infection rates in counties with higher cattle densities, although this approach infers rather than directly links cases and exposures (19,20).…”

Erratum to: Spatially explicit uncertainty modeling of zoonotic pathogen distribution: a case of Listeria monocytogenes in New York State, USA

“…was conducted as described in Chapin et al (2014). We replicated the random forest analysis of environmental distribution by independently obtaining and processing spatial and meteorological GIS predictor data ( Table 2).…”