OREANDA-NEWS. The Limnological Institute of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences plans to start studying the effect of antibiotics on the ecosystem of Lake Baikal in the current expedition season, director of the Institute Andrey Fedotov said at a press conference on Tuesday, March 16. According to him, scientists have already determined, that some microorganisms living in the lake were resistant to certain antibiotics.

«In some species in the microbiome, it is tested, that they do not respond to antibiotics in any way, so they have already adapted somehow. Maybe they were already initially resistant to it, of course», Fedotov added.

Before the expedition, the staff of the Limnological Institute conduct experimental experiments to determine the ability of their devices to detect antibiotics. «We buy special fish for experiments, interfere, roughly speaking, with antibiotics, to see the sensitivity of our devices, how we can detect, detect how they enter the environment, although much is already known», Fedotov said, explaining, that not all Baikal organisms can live in artificial conditions.