House Fly Bacterial Abundance and Antimicrobial Resistance at Kansas Cattle Operations

Data from the Department of Agriculture details bacterial abundance and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in adult house flies collected from Kansas dairy and beef cattle operations. The study includes colony forming unit (CFU) counts for culturable aerobic bacteria and suspected coliforms, along with disk susceptibility testing against five antibiotics for unique isolates. Samples were collected from three Kansas counties between mid-August and early October 2019.

Use Cases

• Analyze the association between fly sex, farm type, and location on bacterial CFU counts from TSA and VRBA media.
• Screen suspected coliform isolates for tetracycline resistance and identify multi-drug resistant (MDR) patterns against florfenicol, enrofloxacin, ceftiofur, and ampicillin.
• Correlate daily average climate data from Kansas Mesonet stations with bacterial abundances carried by house flies.
• Link individual bacterial isolate data, including MALDI-TOF identification results, to collection metadata such as fly sex, farm type, and county.

Strengths

• Includes raw data for colony forming unit (CFU) counts from two distinct culture media: tryptic soy agar (TSA) and violet-red bile agar (VRBA).
• Provides antimicrobial resistance (AMR) screening results for five specific antibiotics: tetracycline, florfenicol, enrofloxacin, ceftiofur, and ampicillin.
• Contains supporting climate data from Kansas Mesonet weather stations for the sampling period in 2019.
• Offers isolate-level provenance through metadata linking isolates to fly sex, farm type, collection date, and county.

Limitations

• Sample size is limited, with flies collected from only six locations (a dairy and a beef feedlot in each of three Kansas counties).
• Data is temporally limited to a specific sampling window from mid-August to early October 2019.
• Geographic scope is restricted to three counties in Kansas, limiting generalizability to other regions.

Provenance

Source

Department of Agriculture

Collection Method

Adult house flies were collected from cattle operations. Bacterial loads were enumerated via CFU counts on selective and non-selective media. Antimicrobial resistance was tested via disk susceptibility assays, with isolate identification via 16S rRNA sequencing or MALDI-TOF MS.

Time Range

Mid-August through early October 2019

Freshness

Last updated in February 2026, though the underlying data collection occurred in 2019.

Geography

Dairy and beef cattle operations in Riley, Marion, and Washington counties, Kansas, USA.