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Distribution and potential significance of a gull fecal marker in urban coastal and riverine areas of southern Ontario, Canada
Citation:
LU, J., H. RYU, S. Hill, M. E. SCHOEN, N. ASHBOLT, T. A. Edge, AND J. W. SANTO-DOMINGO. Distribution and potential significance of a gull fecal marker in urban coastal and riverine areas of southern Ontario, Canada. WATER RESEARCH. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 45(13):3960-3968, (2011).
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public.
Description:
To better understand the distribution of gull fecal contamination in urban areas of southern Ontario, we used a gull-targeted PCR assay against 1309 water samples collected from 15 urban coastal and riverine locations during 2007. Approximately, 58 % of the water samples tested were positive for the gull assay. Locations with high numbers of gulls had a higher frequency of occurrence of the gull marker and a higher level of gull assay qPCR signal than areas less frequented by gulls. Low marker occurrence and low qPCR signals were associated with municipal wastewater and urban stormwater effluents. There were no statistical differences in gull marker occurrence at any one site for beach pore water, ankle, and chest-depth samples, although signals were generally higher in interstitial beach sand pore water and ankle depth water than in chest depth water samples. Overall, the results indicated that gull fecal pollution is widespread in urban coastal and riverine areas in southern Ontario and that it significantly contributes to fecal indicator bacterial loads.
URLs/Downloads:
DISTRIBUTION AND POTENTIAL SIGNIFICANCE OF A GULL FECAL MARKER IN URBAN COASTAL AND RIVERINE AREAS OF SOUTHERN ONTARIO, CANADA
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