title: Considering the complexity of microbial community dynamics in food safety risk assessment.
abstract: 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 community dynamics are highly complex and may be very sensitive to initial conditions and random variation. Seemingly incongruous empirical results for Escherichia 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.
authors.affiliation: US Department of Agriculture, Office of Risk Assessment and Cost Benefit Analysis, 1400 Independence Ave., SW, 5248 S. Ag. Bldg., Washington, DC 20250, USA. mpowell@oce.usda.gov
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Powell
authors.forename: Wayne
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Schlosser
authors.forename: Eric
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Ebel
mesh_terms: D000898:Antibiosis; D001419:Bacteria / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D003257:Consumer Product Safety; D017753:Ecosystem; D005516:Food Microbiology; D006801:Humans; D008954:Models, Biological; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D018570:Risk Assessment