Evaluación del tiempo de vida de bacterias potencialmente patógenas en sedimentos marinos

the present study had the purpose of determining the survival period of bacteria which represent a biological risk and are indicators of contamination. inter-tide marine sediment samples were taken at two beaches of the comodoro rivadavia city in argentine; one the beaches was submitted to contamination due to household effluents, and the other without proof of evident contamination. these samples were initially characterized by bacterial counts in different culture media (tsa, vrb, tcbs, bile esculin agar and cetrimide agar) and by their identification. a study of the survival of the target bacteria in microcosm was also done, monitored by bacterial counts and identification of these bacteria. the main results indicated that there was a marked difference in the composition of the bacterial community between the two samples. in the contaminated sample the bacterial genus were aeromonas, salmonella, pseudomonas, escherichia, ochrobactum and klebsiella, and in the non-contaminated beach bacillus, paenibacillus, micrococcus, photobacterium and vibrio. the microcosm assay showed that after 65 days the bacterial community of the contaminated beach was similar to that of the non-contaminated beach sediment, indicating that by withdrawing the contamination source, the affected zone can probably be recovered