Citation

Benbow ME, Pechal JL, Lang JM, Erb R, Wallace JR. J. Forensic Sci. 2015; 60(6): 1500-1510.

Affiliation

Department of Biology, Millersville University, Millersville, PA, 17551.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1556-4029.12859

PMID

26294275

Abstract

Human remains can be discovered in freshwater or marine ecosystems, circumstances where insects and other invertebrates have infrequently been used for understanding the time of postmortem submersion. In this study, the identification and succession of epinecrotic bacterial communities on vertebrate remains were described during decomposition in a temperate headwater stream during two seasons (summer and winter). Bacterial communities were characterized with 454 pyrosequencing and analyzed at phyletic and generic taxonomic resolutions. There was a significant increase in genera richness over decomposition during both seasons. Additionally, multivariate statistical modeling revealed significant differences in bacterial communities between seasons at both taxonomic resolutions and siginificant genera differences among sampling days within each season, suggesting a succession of these communities. These data are the first to describe aquatic bacterial succession using high-throughput metagenomic sequencing on vertebrate remains submerged in a freshwater habitat, and provide initial evidence for their potential use in forensic investigations.

Language: en