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[1]

Acinetobacter species can be isolated from such natural environments as surface water, wastewater and sewage, healthy human skin, plant, animal and food material as well as domestic appliances.

[2]

Table 1. Natural habitat of non-baumannii Acinetobacter species.

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[3]

Enterobacter species have been previously isolated from various natural habitats, including activated sludge, wastewater, soil and marine environment for various environmental applications

[1] The natural environment as a reservoir of pathogenic and non-pathogenic Acinetobacter species

[2] Reservoirs of Non-baumannii Acinetobacter Species

[3] Decolourization of azo dye using a batch bioreactor by an indigenous bacterium Enterobacter aerogenes ES014 from the waste water dye effluent and toxicity analysis

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  • $\begingroup$ They're "natural" as in not, say, cultured. They're listing places in the world you'd find the species without artificially putting it there. That's it. They're not making some grand statement about human involvement more broadly. I think that's what you're getting at or assuming? $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Aug 17 at 21:28
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe there is some type of human involvement that is natural and the answer maybe lies in what human action is natural and what's not? $\endgroup$
    – Freezing Soul
    Commented Aug 18 at 11:33
  • $\begingroup$ The human animal involvement and The civilized man involvement? $\endgroup$
    – Freezing Soul
    Commented Aug 18 at 11:35
  • $\begingroup$ I wouldn't consider it as deep as that. "Natural" does not have intrinsic meaning. It's a human concept, we can choose to use the word for any grouping of things that we want; to be useful in science, it would be necessary to clearly define it for a given purpose, but it need not always have the same meaning. It's fallacious to reason backwards and derive meaning based on a label without an accompanying definition. $\endgroup$
    – Bryan Krause ♦
    Commented Aug 18 at 14:18
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe my answer probably works for a non popular definition. I still need to know where did the popular/universal/global/present definition came from. $\endgroup$
    – Freezing Soul
    Commented Aug 18 at 14:35

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I think the true answer lies in whether human involvement is an outcome of its animality or their civilized being:

It is evident that modern civilized man disrupts "natural" ecosystems or "biotic communities" on a vast scale. However, it would be challenging, if not impossible, to draw a clear line between the activities of early human tribes that presumably integrated into and formed parts of "biotic communities" and the destructive activities of the modern world. Is man part of "nature" or not? Can his existence be reconciled with the concept of the "complex organism"? Seen as an exceptionally powerful biotic factor that increasingly disturbs the equilibrium of preexisting ecosystems, eventually destroying them while simultaneously creating new ones of a very different nature, human activity finds its rightful place in ecology. Tansley, A. G. (1935). The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms. Ecology, 16(3), 284–307. https://doi.org/10.2307/1930070

For sewage, activated sludge, and wastewater, there is a chance that the necessary factors that would lead to such bacteria would be there without the interference of civilized man. It would be in the form of, for example, Stagnant Water Bodies, Animal Dung Accumulations, and Decaying Organic Matter:

As an ecological factor acting on vegetation the effect of grazing heavy enough to prevent the development of woody plants is essentially the same effect wherever it occurs. If such grazing exists the grazing animals are an important factor in the biome actually present whether they came by themselves or were introduced by man. The dynamic equilibrium maintained is primarily an equilibrium between the grazing animals and the grasses and other hemicryptophytes which can exist and flourish although they are continually eaten back.
Tansley, A. G.(1935). The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms.
Ecology, 16(3), 284–307. https://doi.org/10.2307/1930070

So it's a matter of possibility not conclusive knowledge that these habitats are native.

For food, it would probably be a matter of the type of processing and refinement that a certain kind of food goes through.

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  • $\begingroup$ Added a reference that goes very well with my thoughts. $\endgroup$
    – Freezing Soul
    Commented Aug 20 at 18:30

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