Indicator bacteria community in seawater and coastal sediment: the Persian Gulf as a case
Abstract
Background: The aim of present work was to assess the concentration levels as well as vertical distribution of indicator bacteria including total coliform, fecal coliform, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Heterotrophic Plate Count (HPC) in the marine environment (seawater and coastal sediments) and evaluate the correlation between indicator bacteria and some physicochemical parameters of surface sediments as well as seawaters. Methods: A total number of 48 seawater and sediment samples were taken from 8 stations (each site 6 times with an interval time of 2 weeks) between June and September 2014. Seawater and sediment samples were collected from 30 cm under the surface samples and different sediment depths (0, 4, 7, 10, 15, and 20 cm) respectively, along the Persian Gulf in Bushehr coastal areas. Results: Based on the results, the average numbers of bacterial indicators including total coliform, fecal coliform, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa as well as HPC in seawater samples were 1238.13, 150.87, 8.22 MPN/100 ml and 1742.91 CFU/ml, respectively, and in sediment samples at different depths (from 0-20 cm) varied between 25 × 103 to 51.67 × 10^3, 5.63 × 10^3 to 12.46 × 10^3, 17.33 to 65 MPN/100 ml, 36 × 10^3 to 147.5 × 10^3 CFU/ml, respectively. There were no statistically significant relationships between the indicator organism concentration levels with temperature as well as pH value of seawater. A reverse correlation was found between the level of indicator bacteria and salinity of seawater samples. Also results revealed that the sediment texture influenced abundance of indicators bacteria in sediments. As the concentration levels of indicators bacteria were higher in muddy sediments compare with sandy ones. Conclusion: Result conducted Bushehr coastal sediments constitute a reservoir of indicator bacteria, therefore, whole of the indicators determined were distinguished to be present in higher levels in sediments than in the overlying seawater. It was concluded that the concentration levels of microbial indicators decreased with depth in sediments. Except total coliform, the numbers of other bacteria including fecal coliform, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and HPC bacteria significantly declined in the depth between 10 and 15 cm.
Additional Information
© 2017 The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated. Received: 29 October 2016; Accepted: 7 February 2017; Published: 10 March 2017. The authors are grateful to the Bushehr University of Medical Sciences for their financial support. This project was partly supported by Iran National Science Foundation (Research Chair Award No. 95/INSF/44913). Funding: This study was performed as a master thesis in Environmental Health Engineering founded by Bushehr University of Medical Science. Availability of data and materials: Additional data from the study are available by request to the corresponding author by email. Authors' contributions: VNK was the main investigator, collected the samples and data, and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. SD was the supervisor of study in all steps, edited and polished the final version of manuscript. IN has guided this manuscript. AO performed the statistical analysis. AV and HA were advisors of the study. RM, MK, FFG and FK conducted the experiments. All authors read and approved the final version of manuscript. The authors declare that they have no competing interests. Consent for publication: "Not applicable" Ethics approval and consent to participate: "Not applicable"Attached Files
Published - 10.1186_2Fs40201-017-0266-2.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 81458
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20170914-145619727
- Bushehr University of Medical Sciences
- 95/INSF/44913
- Iran National Science Foundation
- Created
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2017-09-14Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-15Created from EPrint's last_modified field