Climate change could increase hard-to-treat bacterial infections, two studies suggest.
Heat boosted antibiotic resistance among bacteria found in artificially warmed grassland soils, researchers report April 22 in Nature. And as drought strips the soil of moisture, antibiotics in the environment become concentrated in the little water that remains, encouraging the growth of resistant microbes, another team reports in the April Nature Microbiology.
The two studies point to heat and drought driven by climate change as forces behind a rise in antibiotic resistance in natural environments, which could in turn threaten human health.
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