Research on Florfenicol Residue in Coastal Area of Dalian (Northern China) and Analysis of Functional Diversity of the Microbial Community in Marine Sediment

An analytical method based on high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS/MS) has been developed to investigate florfenicol residues. Among 11 stations, florfenicol was detected in six water samples. The concentrations of florfenicol in the six samples were 64.2 mu g L-1, 390.6 mu g L-1, 1.1 x 10(4) mu g L-1, 29.8 mu g L-1, 61.6 mu g L-1, 34.9 mu g L-1, respectively. These results showed that high levels of florfenicol were observed in water samples collected from stations influenced by aquaculture discharges. However, no florfenicol residue was detected in the sediment samples. Furthermore, the functional diversities of microbial community in four marine sediment samples were analyzed by Biolog microplate. For the sediment samples from the stations where antibacterials had been used, the functional diversity of microbial community was much lower than those from the stations where antibacterials were not used.