Microbial sediment interaction: influence on the erosion, transport and fate of pathogens in aquatic environments

病原体与悬浮物和底泥颗粒的关系可以很大程度上影响病原体的运移和归宿。具体地说，病原体与絮状颗粒(通过物理、化学和生物手段结合在一起的复合颗粒)的关系很重要，因为这种关系是控制病原体在水环境中移动的中心，并往往导致病原体向下流向底泥。由于病原体可以在沉积物中长期存活，它可能代表着病原体的储存库，以便随后重新动员和运输到潜在的高风险地区。因此，病原体动力学很可能与水生沉积物动力学密切相关。有人建议，水生沉积物中病原体的生长和生存应引起公共卫生官员的关注，因为这一来源的病原体可能对水柱做出贡献。卫生部门目前的抽样战略是基于细菌完全是浮游的(自由漂浮)的假设，没有考虑沉积隔间中细菌的大量浓度以及不同能量制度(例如海流和海浪)可能对病原体动员的影响。这可能会导致对病原体对公众健康构成的风险的不准确估计，可能需要考虑修改抽样战略，以反映病原体/沉淀物的相关性。

The transport and fate of pathogens can be highly influenced by their relationship with suspended and bed sediment particles. Specifically, the pathogen relationship with flocculated particles (composite particles that are held together by physical, chemical and biological means) is important as this association is central to controlling the mobility of pathogens within the aquatic environment and often results in the downward flux of pathogens to the bed sediment. As pathogens can live for prolonged periods within sediments, it may represent a reservoir of pathogens for subsequent remobilization and transport to potentially high risk areas. As such, pathogen dynamics are likely to be strongly linked to aquatic sediment dynamics. It is suggested that the growth and survival of pathogens within aquatic sediments should be of concern to public health officials because of the potential contribution of pathogens to the water column from this source. Current sampling strategies by health departments are based on an assumption that bacteria are entirely planktonic (free-floating) and do not account for the significant concentration of bacteria in sedimentary compartments and the influence that different energy regimes (e.g. currents and waves) may have on pathogen mobilization. There is the potential that this may lead to an inaccurate estimate of risk posed to public health by pathogens and that consideration may be warranted for the possible modification of sampling strategies to reflect the pathogen/sediment association.