Effects of Strain Type and Water Quality on Soil-Associated Escherichia coli

Abstract

Abstract-Escherichia coli strains from gulls, chickens, humans, Canada geese, horses, deer, and swine exhibited nearly 25-fold differences in adhesion to kaolinite particles. Hydrophobicity and zeta potential were not correlated with adhesion. There were significant differences in adhesion patterns between avian strains and most mammalian strains, while there were no differences in adhesion patterns between domestic animal strains and wild strains, or between ruminant and non-ruminant mammals. Selected strains exhibited varying responses to changes in pH, sorbent type, ionic strength, and generational cell age. The results indicate that adhesion by different strains under varying environmental conditions is more variable than previously recognized and that sediment-adhered bacteria can represent a significant population. Such wide variation in adhesion behavior could affect the assessment of bacterial contamination in receiving waters, and has implications for field sampling techniques, laboratory culture conditions, and experimental design of water quality projects, including TMDL protocols.Index Terms-E. coli, fecal coliforms, water pollution, bacterial adhesion, microbial source tracking.

The current state of knowledge on the interaction of Escherichia coli within vegetative filter strips as a sustainable best management practice to reduce fecal pathogen loading into surface waters

“…Although the provisional guidelines for surface water bodies are 100 colony-forming units (cfu)/100 mL of fecal coliforms (US EPA 1994), for swimming, these limits are often exceeded (for instance, US policy response to this is the introduction of total maximum daily loads, TMDL, policy), which refers to loading from a source (for instance, 126 cfu/100 mL for E. coil ). Waters exceeding limits for drinking are considered impaired (0 CFU/100) (Gallagher et al 2013). …”

“…Interaction of VFS, infiltration into soil matrix, partitioning, biofilm formation, adsorption/detachment, straining and biological die-off/regrowth have to be combined to design and assess manure management strategies in association with projected overland flow regimes and pathogen loads (Blount 2015; Gallagher et al 2013; Pachepsky et al 2006; Quero et al 2015). While initial studies of manure-borne fecal microorganisms pathogens such as E. coil , developed in the 1980s, were typically concerned with pedon and hill slope scales, in recent years, hill slope and watershed scales have led insight into the effects of soil, vegetation, management, and weather on the fate and transport of fecal pathogens (Overcash et al 1981; Moore et al 1982, 1983, 1988; Guber et al 2005a, b, 2006, 2007; Pachepsky et al 2006; Moreira et al 2006; Allaire et al 2015; Rippy 2015).…”

Quantifying Attachment and Antibiotic Resistance of Escherichia coli from Conventional and Organic Swine Manure

“…The attached fraction of E. coli from runoff from manure-amended fields has been reported to range from >1 to >49% (Muirhead et al, 2005;Soupir and Mostaghimi, 2011). Although Smyth et al (1978) and Boerlin et al (2005) stated that differences in the propensity for attachment might vary between pathogenic and nonpathogenic strains of E. coli, others found no related patterns in the sorption of E. coli exposed to antibiotics but rather that attachment is highly variable and related to environmental conditions (Luppens et al, 2008;Petrova and Sauer, 2012;Gallagher et al, 2013).…”

Effect of vegetated filter strips on infiltration and survival rates of Escherichia coli in soil matrix at Mau, Njoro River Watershed, Kenya

“…Microbe infiltration might be governed by soil physical properties; vegetated cover; antecedent moisture content; rainfall intensity and inflow, and slope, while hydraulic resistance is a function of vegetation type and inflow volume (Munoz-Carpena and Parsons 1999;Soupir et al 2010;Trowsdale and Simcock 2011;Davis et al 2012;Martinez et al 2013). It has been reported that the presence of manure reduces soil bacteria attachment (Soupir et al 2006;Roodsari et al 2005;Davis et al 2009;Soupir et al 2010;Gallagher et al 2013;Martinez et al 2013). Implementation of conservation practices to reduce bacterial transport has been met with limited success (Cardoso et al 2012;Komlos et al 2013).…”