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Occurrence of Traditional and Alternative Fecal Indicators in Tropical Urban Environments under Different Land Use Patterns
- Source :
- Applied and environmental microbiology. 84(14)
- Publication Year :
- 2018
-
Abstract
- This study evaluated the geospatial distribution of fecal indicator bacteria (FIB) (i.e., Escherichia coli , Enterococcus spp.) and the alternative fecal indicator pepper mild mottle virus (PMMoV) in tropical freshwater environments under different land use patterns. Results show that the occurrence and concentration of microbial fecal indicators were higher for urban than for parkland-dominated areas, consistent with land use weightage. Significant positive correlations with traditional FIB indicate that PMMoV is a suitable indicator of fecal contamination in tropical catchments waters (0.549 ≤ rho ≤ 0.612; P < 0.01). PMMoV exhibited a strong significant correlation with land use weightage (rho = 0.728; P < 0.01) compared to traditional FIB (rho = 0.583; P < 0.01). In addition, chemical tracers were also added to evaluate the potential relationships with microbial fecal indicators. The relationships between diverse variables (e.g., environmental parameters, land use coverage, and chemical tracers) and the occurrence of FIB and PMMoV were evaluated. By using stepwise multiple linear regression (MLR), the empirical experimental models substantiate the impact of land use patterns and anthropogenic activities on microbial water quality, and the output results of the empirical models may be able to predict the sources and transportation of human fecal pollution or sewage contamination. In addition, the high correlation between PMMoV data obtained from quantitative real-time PCR (qPCR) and viral metagenomics data supports the possibility of using viral metagenomics to relatively quantify specific microbial indicators for monitoring microbial water quality (0.588 ≤ rho ≤ 0.879; P < 0.05). IMPORTANCE The results of this study may support the hypothesis of using PMMoV as an alternative indicator of human fecal contamination in tropical surface waters from the perspective of land use patterns. The predictive result of the occurrence of human fecal indicators with high accuracy may reflect the source and transportation of human fecal pollution, which are directly related to the risk to human health, and thereafter, steps can be taken to mitigate these risks.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
Pollution
Veterinary medicine
media_common.quotation_subject
030106 microbiology
Indicator bacteria
Sewage
010501 environmental sciences
Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction
01 natural sciences
Applied Microbiology and Biotechnology
03 medical and health sciences
Feces
Rivers
Water Quality
Land Use
Escherichia coli
Humans
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
media_common
Ecology
business.industry
Public and Environmental Health Microbiology
Tobamovirus
Water Pollution
Fecal Indicators
Contamination
Coliform bacteria
Fecal coliform
Engineering::Materials [DRNTU]
Indicator species
Environmental science
Metagenome
Water quality
business
Water Microbiology
Enterococcus
Food Science
Biotechnology
Environmental Monitoring
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 10985336
- Volume :
- 84
- Issue :
- 14
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Applied and environmental microbiology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....79567e1a0d80ddf212bd369a2c2aa62b