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Fate of autochthonous and fecal bacteria in marine ecosystems

par Servais, Pierre ;Menon, Patricia
Référence Kieler Meeresforschungen, 8, page (290-296)
Publication Publié, 1991

Article révisé par les pairs

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Résumé :

Usually, the rate of disappearance of fecal bacteria in natural aquatic ecosystems is followed by the plate count method. When released in seawater, fecal bacteria enter a viable but non culturable state so that plate count method does not seem to be a suitable method for studying mortality of fecal bacteria. A method, which consists in following the disappearance of radioactive tracer from bacterial DNA of super(3)H-thymidine labelled natural assemblages of bacteria, has been proposed for measuring the mortality rate of autochthonous bacteria in aquatic ecosystems. A slight modification of this method allows its application to the study of the mortality of fecal bacteria in natural aquatic ecosystems. Mortality rates of autochthonous bacteria and Escherichia coli in the Belgian coastal zone of the North Sea have been compared.