We reviewed worldwide spatial patterns in the food habits of the brown bear Ursus arctos in relation to geographical (latitude, longitude, altitude) and environmental (temperature, snow cover depth and duration, precipitation, primary productivity) variables. We collected data from 28 studies on brown bear diet based on faecal analysis, covering the entire geographical range of this widely distributed large carnivore. We analysed separately four data sets based on different methods of diet assessment. Temperature and snow conditions were the most important factors determining the composition of brown bear diet. Populations in locations with deeper snow cover, lower temperatures and lower productivity consumed significantly more vertebrates, fewer invertebrates and less mast. Trophic diversity was positively correlated with temperature, precipitation and productivity but negatively correlated with the duration of snow cover and snow depth. Brown bear populations from temperate forest biomes had the most diverse diet. In general, environmental factors were more explicative of diet than geographical variables. Dietary spatial patterns were best revealed by the relative biomass and energy content methods of diet analysis, whereas the frequency of occurrence and relative biomass methods were most appropriate for investigating variation in trophic diversity. Spatial variation in brown bear diet is the result of environmental conditions, especially climatic factors, which affect the nutritional and energetic requirements of brown bears as well as the local availability of food. The trade‐off between food availability on the one hand, and nutritional and energetic requirements on the other hand, determines brown bear foraging decisions. In hibernating species such as the brown bear, winter severity seems to play a role in determining foraging strategies. Large‐scale reviews of food habits should be based on several measures of diet composition, with special attention to those methods reflecting the energetic value of food.

After the first report in May 2008, the National Reference Center for Susceptibility Testing confirmed 113 cases of infection or colonization by KPC-producing members of the family Enterobacteriaceae in Poland by the end of 2009. The vast majority of patients were found in 18 hospitals; three patients were diagnosed at outpatient clinics. Most of the institutions were in the Warsaw area, including three hospitals with the highest numbers of cases. When available, the data on previous hospitalizations often indicated that these hospitals were the probable acquisition sites; one patient arrived from New York. The group of 119 unique isolates consisted of Klebsiella pneumoniae (n ‫؍‬ 114), followed by Klebsiella oxytoca (n ‫؍‬ 3), and Escherichia coli (n ‫؍‬ 2). The K. pneumoniae isolates were dominated by the clone sequence type 258 (ST258) (n ‫؍‬ 111); others were ST11 and ST23. The ST258 group was heterogeneous, with 28 pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) subtypes, ϳ25 plasmid profiles, and nine ␤-lactamase patterns differing by KPC variants (KPC-2 mainly), and SHV-12, CTX-M-3, and TEM-1-like enzymes. Plasmids carrying bla KPC genes varied in size (ϳ48 to 250 kb), structure, and conjugation potential. Transferable IncFII K plasmids of ϳ110 to 160 kb, probably pKpQIL or its derivatives, were observed in all K. pneumoniae clones and in K. oxytoca. Also prevalent were nontypeable pETKp50-like plasmids of ϳ50 kb, found in K. pneumoniae ST258 and E. coli isolates (ST93 and ST224). Two K. pneumoniae-E. coli pairs from single patients might represent the in vivo transfer of such plasmids. The striking diversity of KPC producers at the early stage of dissemination could result from several introductions of these bacteria into the country, their multidirectional evolution during clonal spread, and transfer of the plasmids.

The largest NDM outbreak in a non-endemic country has been observed, being an alarming phenomenon in resistance epidemiology in Poland.

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The aim of this study was to investigate human invasive isolates of enterococci, obtained through prospective surveillance in Poland. The consecutive enterococcal isolates were collected in 30 hospitals between May 2010 and June 2011, and studied by species identification, antimicrobial susceptibility testing and, for Enterococcus faecium by detection of markers specific for the hospital meroclone, multilocus VNTR analysis (MLVA) and multilocus sequence typing (MLST). Additionally, the genomic difference regions (GDRs) characteristic for lineage 78 were searched by PCR. Among 259 isolates, a nearly equal number of Enterococcus faecalis (n = 140; 54.1 %) and E. faecium (n = 112; 43.2 %) was found. The observed 14-day mortality rate of infected patients reached 18.1 %. All isolates were susceptible to linezolid and daptomycin. High-level aminoglycoside resistance occurred in over 50 % of isolates. Vancomycin resistance mediated by vanA or vanB was detected in 7.1 % of E. faecium; 71.4 % of isolates were multidrug resistant. E. faecium isolates ubiquitously carried molecular markers of hospital-associated meroclone (IS16, espEfm, intA of ICEEfm1) and multilocus sequence typing showed the domination of representatives of lineages 78 and 17/18 (52.7 % and 46.4 %, respectively). Isolates of lineage 78 were significantly enriched in all the GDRs studied. The recent spread of E. faecium from this lineage contributed to the observed increase of E. faecium in enterococcal invasive infections in hospitals in Poland.