Investigating Escherichia coli habitat transition from sediments to water in tropical urban lakes

• Published in: PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) Vol. 12; p. e16556
• Main Authors: Liu, Boyu, Lee, Choon Weng, Bong, Chui Wei, Wang, Ai-Jun
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States PeerJ. Ltd 11.01.2024; PeerJ, Inc; PeerJ Inc
• Subjects: Abundance; Biofilms; Contamination; Decay rate; E coli; Ecology; Ecosystem; Environmental Contamination and Remediation; Escherichia coli; Experiments; Faecal indicator bacteria; Freshwater Biology; Habitat transition; Habitats; Investigations; Lakes; Lakes - microbiology; Membrane filters; Microbiology; Parks & recreation areas; Precipitation; Sediment; Sediments; Sediments (Geology); Tropical lakes; Water; Water column; Water Microbiology; Water Quality; Malaysia; United States > US; Habitat transition; Decay rate; Sediment; Faecal indicator bacteria; Escherichia coli
• ISSN: 2167-8359; 2167-8359
• DOI: 10.7717/peerj.16556

is a commonly used faecal indicator bacterium to assess the level of faecal contamination in aquatic habitats. However, extensive studies have reported that sediment acts as a natural reservoir of in the extraintestinal environment. can be released from the sediment, and this may lead to overestimating the level of faecal contamination during water quality surveillance. Thus, we aimed to investigate the effects of habitat transition from sediment to water on its abundance in the water column. This study enumerated the abundance of in the water and sediment at five urban lakes in the Kuala Lumpur-Petaling Jaya area, state of Selangor, Malaysia. We developed a novel method for measuring habitat transition rate of sediment to the water column, and evaluated the effects of habitat transition on abundance in the water column after accounting for its decay in the water column. The abundance of in the sediment ranged from below detection to 12,000 cfu g , and was about one order higher than in the water column (1 to 2,300 cfu mL ). The habitat transition rates ranged from 0.03 to 0.41 h . In contrast, the decay rates ranged from 0.02 to 0.16 h . In most cases (>80%), the habitat transition rates were higher than the decay rates in our study. Our study provided a possible explanation for the persistence of in tropical lakes. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first quantitative study on habitat transition of from sediments to water column.