A Farm-Scale Risk-Index for Reducing Fecal Contamination of Surface Waters

2015 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 248-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard Muirhead
2003 ◽  
Vol 1 (4) ◽  
pp. 141-151 ◽  
Author(s):  
John F. Griffith ◽  
Stephen B. Weisberg ◽  
Charles D. McGee

Microbiological source tracking (MST) methods are increasingly being used to identify fecal contamination sources in surface waters, but these methods have been subjected to limited comparative testing. In this study, 22 researchers employing 12 different methods were provided sets of identically prepared blind water samples. Each sample contained one to three of five possible fecal sources (human, dog, cattle, seagull or sewage). Researchers were also provided with portions of the fecal material used to inoculate the blind water samples for use as library material. No MST method that was tested predicted the source material in the blind samples perfectly. Host-specific PCR performed best at differentiating between human and non-human sources, but primers are not yet available for differentiating between all of the non-human sources. Virus and F+ coliphage methods reliably identified sewage, but were unable to identify fecal contamination from individual humans. Library-based isolate methods correctly identified the dominant source in most samples, but also had frequent false positives in which fecal sources not in the samples were incorrectly identified as being present. Among the library-based methods, genotypic methods generally performed better than phenotypic methods.


Author(s):  
Vanessa Tibolla Moretto ◽  
Soraia Machado Cordeiro ◽  
Patricia Salcedo Bartley ◽  
Luciano Kalabric Silva ◽  
Rafael Ponce-Terashima ◽  
...  

2015 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. 1249-1256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Subbarao V. Ravva ◽  
Chester Z. Sarreal ◽  
Michael B. Cooley

F+ RNA coliphages are invaluable for predicting the sources of fecal contamination in the environment and their prevalence data may aid in preventing the spread of enteric pathogens from likely sources.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Barcala ◽  
Joachim Rozemeijer ◽  
Leonard Osté ◽  
Bas Van Der Grift ◽  
Laurens Gerner ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Laurice Beatrice Raphaelle O. dela Peña ◽  
Kevin L. Labrador ◽  
Mae Ashley G. Nacario ◽  
Nicole R. Bolo ◽  
Windell L. Rivera

Abstract Laguna Lake is an economically important resource in the Philippines, with reports of declining water quality due to fecal pollution. Currently, monitoring methods rely on counting fecal indicator bacteria, which does not supply information on potential sources of contamination. In this study, we predicted sources of Escherichia coli in lake stations and tributaries by establishing a fecal source library composed of rep-PCR DNA fingerprints of human, cattle, swine, poultry, and sewage samples (n = 1,408). We also evaluated three statistical methods for predicting fecal contamination sources in surface waters. Random forest (RF) outperformed k-nearest neighbors and discriminant analysis of principal components in terms of average rates of correct classification in two- (84.85%), three- (82.45%), and five-way (74.77%) categorical splits. Overall, RF exhibited the most balanced prediction, which is crucial for disproportionate libraries. Source tracking of environmental isolates (n = 332) revealed the dominance of sewage (47.59%) followed by human sources (29.22%), poultry (12.65%), swine (7.23%), and cattle (3.31%) using RF. This study demonstrates the promising utility of a library-dependent method in augmenting current monitoring systems for source attribution of fecal contamination in Laguna Lake. This is also the first known report of microbial source tracking using rep-PCR conducted in surface waters of the Laguna Lake watershed.


2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (suppl_1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Bartley ◽  
Cleiton Santos ◽  
Vanessa Moretto ◽  
Viviane Ferreira ◽  
T. Nicholas Domitrovic ◽  
...  

2005 ◽  
Vol 71 (8) ◽  
pp. 4461-4468 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. Ahmed ◽  
R. Neller ◽  
M. Katouli

ABSTRACT A metabolic fingerprint database of enterococci and Escherichia coli from 10 host groups of animals was developed to trace the sources of fecal contamination in surface waters. In all, 526 biochemical phenotypes (BPTs) of enterococci and 530 E. coli BPTs were obtained from 4,057 enterococci and 3,728 E. coli isolates tested. Of these, 231 Enterococcus BPTs and 257 E. coli BPTs were found in multiple host groups. The remaining 295 Enterococcus BPTs and 273 E. coli BPTs were unique to individual host groups. The database was used to trace the sources of fecal contamination in a local creek. The mean diversities (Di) of enterococci (Di = 0.76 ± 0.05) and E. coli (Di = 0.88 ± 0.04) were high (maximum 1) in water samples, indicating diverse sources of fecal contamination. Overall, 71% of BPTs of enterococci and 67% of E. coli BPTs from water samples were identified as human and animal sources. Altogether, 248 Enterococcus BPTs and 282 E. coli BPTs were found in water samples. Among enterococci, 26 (10%) BPTs were identical to those of humans and 152 BPTs (61%) were identical to those of animals (animal BPTs). Among E. coli isolates, 36 (13%) BPTs were identical to those of humans and 151 (54%) BPTs were identical to those of animals. Of the animal BPTs, 101 (66%) Enterococcus BPTs and 93 (62%) E. coli BPTs were also unique to individual animal groups. On the basis of these unique Enterococcus BPTs, chickens contributed 14% of contamination, followed by humans (10%), dogs (7%), and horses (6%). For E. coli, humans contributed 13% of contamination, followed by ducks (9%), cattle (7%), and chickens (6%). The developed metabolic fingerprint database was able to distinguish between human and animal sources as well as among animal species in the studied catchment.


1999 ◽  
Vol 65 (12) ◽  
pp. 5628-5630 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. A. Alderisio ◽  
N. DeLuca

ABSTRACT Water suppliers have often implicated roosting birds for fecal contamination of their surface waters. Geese and gulls have been the primary targets of this blame although literature documenting the fecal coliform content of these birds is quite limited. To determine the actual fecal coliform concentrations of these birds, fecal samples from 249 ring-billed gulls and 236 Canada geese in Westchester County, N.Y., were analyzed over a 2-year period. Results indicate that gull feces contain a greater average concentration of fecal coliform bacteria per gram (3.68 × 108) than do goose feces (1.53 × 104); however, average fecal sample weights of the geese were more than 15 times higher than those of the gulls.


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