113 Results Found

(1) The beach areas of Galveston, Texas, USA are heavily used for recreational activities and often experience elevated fecal indicator bacteria levels, representing a potential threat to ecosystem services, human health, and tourism-based economies...

With increasing contamination in aquatic ecosystems, effective monitoring is crucial to preserve biodiversity and protect public health. This study quantified bioindicators (red swamp crayfish (Pcla), Genji-firefly (Lcr2), Ayu fish (Paa), and caddisf...

The high concentration of swine production in southeastern North Carolina generates public health concerns regarding the potential transport of pathogens from these production systems to nearby surface waters. The microbial source tracking (MST) tool...

Beach sand may act as a reservoir for numerous microorganisms, including enteric pathogens. Several of these pathogens originate in human or animal feces, which may pose a public health risk. In August 2019, high levels of fecal indicator bacteria (F...

Fecal contamination of waterbodies due to poorly managed human and animal waste is a pervasive problem that can be particularly costly to address, especially if mitigation strategies are ineffective at sufficiently reducing the level of contamination...

A safe water supply is a necessity, but it remains one of the backlogs of services rendered in rural areas of developing countries. This leads to vulnerable communities using water from available sources that is unsafe as it is contaminated with faec...

Fecal contamination of water constitutes a serious health risk to humans and environmental ecosystems. This is mainly due to the fact that fecal material carries a variety of enteropathogens, which can enter and circulate in water bodies through feca...

The Silway River has historically failed to meet safe fecal coliform levels due to improper waste disposal. The river mouth is located in General Santos City, the tuna capital of the Philippines and a leading producer of hogs, cattle, and poultry. Th...

Microbial communities play a pivotal role in material cycling, energy flow, and pollutant degradation within river ecosystems. Thus, gaining a clear understanding of how wastewater discharge affects microbial community structure and function is essen...

Gastrointestinal (GI) illness risks associated with exposure to waters impacted by human and nonhuman fecal sources were estimated using quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA). Microbial source tracking (MST) results had identified Escherichia...

Waterborne pathogens and related diseases are a major public health concern worldwide, not only by the morbidity and mortality that they cause, but by the high cost that represents their prevention and treatment. These diseases are directly related t...

Clam Beach is located in Northern California, USA, and is listed as an impaired waterway by the federal government. The scope of this study was to investigate this beach and surrounding watershed to determine, if possible, the source of the impairmen...

In this study, we aimed to develop a comprehensive microbial source amplicon database tailored for source tracking in veterinary settings. We rigorously tested our locally curated source tracking database by selecting a frequently accessed environmen...

Using 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing and FEAST microbial source tracking, this study characterized the bacterial communities in tissues (roots, stems, leaves, seeds) and associated soils (rhizosphere and bulk soil) of Vernonia anthelmintica, an im...

Honey bees, as vital pollinators and essential contributors to terrestrial ecosystems, play a critical role in maintaining biodiversity and ecological stability. Beyond their role as pollinators, honey bees are increasingly recognized as bioindicator...

Microbial contamination and the prevalence of foodborne pathogens in mutton meat and during its slaughtering process were investigated through microbial source tracking and automated pathogen identification techniques. Samples from mutton meat, cutti...

Waterborne pathogens are heterogeneously distributed across various spatiotemporal scales in water resources, and representative sampling is therefore crucial for accurate risk assessment. Since regulatory monitoring of microbiological water quality...

In sub-Saharan Africa, many families travel to collect water and store it in their homes for daily use, presenting an opportunity for the introduction of fecal contamination. One stored and one source water sample were each collected from 45 househol...

In settings where humans and animals closely coexist, the introduction of faecal material into unprotected water sources significantly increases the risk of contracting diarrhoeal and zoonotic waterborne diseases. The data were gathered from a survey...

It is critical to attribute faecal contamination to its original source in order to assess public health risks and implement effective interventions to mitigate future contamination. This study aimed to identify the primary sources of faecal contamin...

Sources of fecal contamination in Laguna Lake, Philippines, were identified using a library-independent microbial source tracking method targeting host-associated Bacteroides 16S rDNA-based markers. Water samples from nine lake stations were assessed...

Microbial source tracking (MST) endeavors to determine sources of fecal pollution in environmental waters by capitalizing on the association of certain microorganisms with the gastrointestinal tract and feces of specific animal groups. Several decade...

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a robust technique used to make multiple copies of a segment of DNA. However, the available PCR platforms require elaborate and time-consuming operations or costly instruments, hindering their application. Herei...

Climate change and increasing water scarcity are driving the need for resilient and fit-for-purpose urban water management. This study presents a case from Lisbon, Portugal, where twenty-one groundwater sources were evaluated as potential alternative...

Drinking water outbreaks occur worldwide and may be caused by several factors, including raw water contamination, treatment deficiencies, and distribution network failure. This study describes two drinking water outbreaks in Finland in 2016 (outbreak...

Onsite molecular diagnostics can revolutionize fecal pollution source tracking. We aimed to validate a method for onsite qPCR assays with a miniature speaker-sized Q qPCR instrument and other portable equipment items. We showed that marker genes for...

Floor materials in indoor environments are known to be reservoirs of microbes. We focused on examining bacterial community composition, antibiotic resistance (AR) and microbial source tracking (MST) of fecal bacteria on the floor surfaces. Swab sampl...

In drinking water supply, riverbank filtration (RBF) is an efficient and cost-effective way of eliminating pathogens and micropollutants using a combination of biotic and abiotic processes. Microbial communities in the hyporheic zone both contribute...

This study examines the role of endophytic microbial colonization on the decomposition of oak leaf litter, a high-quality substrate in forest ecosystems. Over a one-year incubation, we observed a significant reduction in mass loss in colonized litter...

Host-associated genetic markers that allow for fecal source identification have been used extensively as a diagnostic tool to determine fecal sources within watersheds, but have not been used in routine monitoring to prioritize remediation actions am...

This manuscript evaluates the U.S. Recreational Water Quality Criteria (RWQC) of 2012, based upon discussions during a conference held 11–13 March 2013, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The RWQC of 2012 did not meet expectations among the research community bec...

This study identified the sources of fecal contamination in the groundwater of different land covers. A total of 300 groundwater samples were collected in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, in the dry (n = 152) and wet (n = 148) seasons of 2016. Fecal indi...

This study focused on the links between soil physicochemical properties and the gut microbiota of goitered gazelles (Gazella subgutturosa) in the hyper-arid Qaidam Basin. By integrating 16S rRNA gene sequencing, soil physicochemical analysis (11 soil...

Timely and accurate detection and characterization of microbial threats is crucial for effective infection and outbreak management. Additionally, in food production, rapid microbe identification is indispensable for maintaining quality control and hy...

Due to its ability to collect and remove aquaculture waste, an in-pond raceway system (IPRS) has been used to decrease the uncontrolled waste discharge in the traditional cage aquaculture method in large water bodies. However, when applied to large w...

The fate of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) has been revealed in various environmental media in recent years. Namely, the emergence of genes that resist colistin and carbapenems has attracted wide attention. However, the pollution condition of ARG...

Excessive levels of fecal indicator bacteria are a major cause of water quality impairment. Grazing and its management may significantly impact bacteria concentrations; however, other sources can contribute to water quality issues both in the presenc...

The National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act protects less than ¼ of a percent of the United States’ river miles, focusing on free-flowing rivers of good water quality with outstandingly remarkable values for recreation, scenery, and other unique river at...

Nitrogen is a vital nutrient helpful to plants and crop growth. However, among the leading causes of water resources pollution is the excess nitrogen from agricultural sources. In European Union countries, the Nitrates Directive has been approved to...

In Tasmania, Australian fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus doriferus) regularly interact with Atlantic salmon (Salmo salmar L.) aquaculture lease operations and opportunistically consume fish. The microbial communities of seals and aquaculture salmon...

Populations of resident, non-migratory Canada geese are rapidly increasing. Canada geese are known to transmit viral and bacterial diseases, posing a possible threat to human health. The most prevalent pathogens vectored by geese are Campylobacter sp...

The Far North region in Cameroon has been more heavily impacted by cholera than any other region over the past decade, but very little has been done to study the drivers of waterborne diseases in the region. We investigated the relationship between w...

This study investigates the influence of urban pollution and climate dynamics on water quality and the bacterial communities in an Argelian watershed. Twenty-one sampling campaigns were conducted over two years at six sites along the Oued Boussellam,...

Most of the waterborne disease outbreaks observed in North America are associated with rural drinking water systems. The majority of the reported waterborne outbreaks are related to microbial agents (parasites, bacteria and viruses). Rural areas are...

In urban Maroua, Cameroon, improved drinking water sources are available to a large majority of the population, yet this water is frequently distributed through informal distribution systems and stored in home containers (canaries), leaving it vulner...

We investigated the presence of the fecal indicator bacteria Escherichia coli, and other taxa associated with sewage communities in coastal sediments, near beaches with reported poor bathing water quality, focusing on the influence of effluent from a...

A major goal of fecal pollution monitoring in the environment is to identify point sources of fecal contamination that may pose potential health risks due to animal- and human-specific pathogens. Ideal source tracking markers should have high host sp...

Lake Erie beaches exhibit impaired water quality due to fecal contamination and cyanobacterial blooms, though few studies address potential relationships between these two public health hazards. Using quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), Mi...

In Hawaiʻi, the transition from customary subsistence flooded taro agroecosystems, which regulate stream discharge rate trapping sediment and nutrients, to a plantation-style economy (c. the 1840s) led to nearshore sediment deposition—smotherin...

Variations in ecological environments (including milk collection equipment and milk storage tanks in the pasture) and seasonal changes may contribute to raw milk contamination, thereby affecting food safety. The composition, structure, and relationsh...