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

病原体与悬浮物和床层沉积物颗粒的关系可对病原体的迁移和归宿产生很大影响。具体而言，病原体与絮凝颗粒（通过物理、化学和生物手段结合在一起的复合颗粒）的关系是重要的，因为这种关联对于控制病原体在水生环境中的流动性至关重要，并且通常导致病原体向下流入床沉积物。由于病原体可以在沉积物中长期生存，因此沉积物可能是病原体的储存库，随后可能会重新流动并转移到潜在的高风险地区。因此，病原体动态可能与水生沉积物动态密切相关。有人建议，水生沉积物内的病原体的生长和生存应关注的公共卫生官员，因为病原体的潜在贡献，从这个来源的水柱。卫生部门目前的取样策略是基于细菌完全是浮游的（自由漂浮）的假设，没有考虑到细菌在沉积区室中的大量集中以及不同能量状态（例如电流和波浪）可能对病原体动员的影响。这有可能导致对病原体对公共健康构成的风险作出不准确的估计，因此可能需要考虑修改采样战略，以反映病原体/沉积物的关联。

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.