Considering the Complexity of Microbial Community Dynamics in Food Safety Risk Assessment. M. Powell, US Department of Agriculture, DC; W. Schlosser, US Department of Agriculture, TX; and E. Ebel, US Department of Agriculture, CO
The potential for competitive inhibition to limit the growth of microbial pathogens in food raises questions about the external validity of typical predictive microbiology studies and suggests the need to consider microbial community dynamics in food safety risk assessment. Ecological theory indicates, however, that microbial community dynamics are highly complex and that a wide ranging continuum of dynamics are possible. Specifically, it suggests that the path and outcome of competitive interactions may be highly sensitive to initial conditions and random variation in key factors such as growth rates and interspecific competition coefficients. Fully considering the complexity of microbial community dynamics would require detailed knowledge of the food, its microbial composition and innoculum levels, the factors affecting competitive interactions, and how the food is handled during transportation, storage, distribution, and use. Seemingly incongruous empirical results for E. coli O157:H7 in ground beef are shown to be consistent with a simple theoretical model of interspecific competition. A potential means of incorporating community-level microbial dynamics into the food safety risk assessment process is explored.
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