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Incidence of Somatic and F+ Coliphage in Great Lake Basin Recreational Waters
Citation:
Wanjugi, P., Mano Sivaganesan, A. Korajkic, B. McMinn, C. Kelty, E. Rhodes, Mike Cyterski, R. Zepp, K. Oshima, E. Stachler, J. Kinzelman, S. Kurdas, M. Citriglia, F. Hsu, B. Acrey, AND O. Shanks. Incidence of Somatic and F+ Coliphage in Great Lake Basin Recreational Waters. WATER RESEARCH. Elsevier Science Ltd, New York, NY, 140:200-210, (2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/J.WATRES.2018.04.055
Impact/Purpose:
There is a growing interest for the potential use of coliphage as an alternative indicator to assess fecal pollution in recreational waters. Coliphage are a group of viruses that infect Escherichia coli and are considered as potential surrogates to infer the likely presence of enteric viral pathogens. However, many uncertainties still exist concerning the application of coliphage for recreational water quality monitoring. We report the use of a dead-end hollow fiber ultrafiltration single agar layer method to enumerate F+ and somatic coliphage from surface waters collected from three Great Lake areas. At each location, three sites (two beach; one river) were sampled five days a week over the 2015 beach season (n = 609 total samples). In addition, culturable E. coli and enterococci densities, as well as 16 physical, chemical, weather and recreational area parameters were assessed such as rainfall, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, pH, and ultra violet irradiation. Overall, somatic coliphage levels ranged from non-detectable to 4.39 log10 PFU/L and were consistently higher compared to F+ (non-detectable to 3.15 log10 PFU/L), regardless of sampling site. Coliphage densities often poorly correlated with fecal indicator bacteria levels, particularly at beach sites (r = 0.28 to 0.52). In addition, ultraviolet light absorption and water temperature were closely associated with coliphage densities, but not fecal indicator bacteria levels suggesting different persistence trends in Great Lake waters between indicator types (bacteria versus virus). Finally, implications for coliphage water quality management and future research directions are discussed.
Description:
There is a growing interest for the potential use of coliphage as an alternative indicator to assess fecal pollution in recreational waters. Coliphage are a group of viruses that infect Escherichia coli and are considered as potential surrogates to infer the likely presence of enteric viral pathogens. However, many uncertainties still exist concerning the application of coliphage for recreational water quality monitoring. We report the use of a dead-end hollow fiber ultrafiltration single agar layer method to enumerate F+ and somatic coliphage from surface waters collected from three Great Lake areas. At each location, three sites (two beach; one river) were sampled five days a week over the 2015 beach season (n = 609 total samples). In addition, culturable E. coli and enterococci densities, as well as 16 physical, chemical, weather and recreational area parameters were assessed such as rainfall, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, pH, and ultra violet irradiation. Overall, somatic coliphage levels ranged from non-detectable to 4.39 log10 PFU/L and were consistently higher compared to F+ (non-detectable to 3.15 log10 PFU/L), regardless of sampling site. Coliphage densities often poorly correlated with fecal indicator bacteria levels, particularly at beach sites (r = 0.28 to 0.52). In addition, ultraviolet light absorption and water temperature were closely associated with coliphage densities, but not fecal indicator bacteria levels suggesting different persistence trends in Great Lake waters between indicator types (bacteria versus virus). Finally, implications for coliphage water quality management and future research directions are discussed.
URLs/Downloads:
DOI: Incidence of Somatic and F+ Coliphage in Great Lake Basin Recreational Waters
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