SGER: Human Contributions to Microbial Pollution in Hanalei Bay, Kauai

有了这笔探索性研究小额赠款（SGER）的资金，斯坦福大学的研究人员将与位于马诺阿的夏威夷大学的同事合作，调查一个在海洋和人类健康方面具有新兴重要性的领域，该领域在过去没有得到广泛研究：热带海洋沃茨中微生物污染物的来源，命运和运输。在2007年春季由美国环保署主办的关于微生物污染的佩尔斯顿式研讨会上，专家们宣布这一新兴领域是未来2-5年内最重要的领域之一。该研究小组预计将在建立评估热带沃茨微生物污染物来源的框架方面取得重大进展，并将建立一种新的来源跟踪工具的使用。研究区域，哈纳雷湾，位于考艾岛的北岸，是美国五大旅游海滩之一。海湾的有益用途包括钓鱼，游泳，冲浪和划船。根据美国国家资源保护理事会的数据，哈纳雷湾的微生物水质是夏威夷州最差的; 2005年在哈纳雷河（美国遗产河）河口附近的海湾采集的水样中有43%违反了水质标准。 在哈纳雷湾的初步研究表明，人类对海湾的微生物污染有贡献。这并不奇怪，因为社区完全依赖化粪池系统和污水处理池。该海湾是测试和展示评估人类对热带沃茨微生物污染贡献的新工具和方法的理想环境。该项目将采用分层方法，使用作为拟议工作的一部分开发的新工具和在PRCMB进行微生物来源跟踪。在第一层，该小组将描述哈纳雷湾近海岸水质的特征，并使用微生物指标确定海湾附近的潜在来源。这将有助于深入了解对海湾微生物污染的丰度和分布的物理和生物控制，并将确定区域规模的不安全状况预测因素。在第二层，他们将使用来源跟踪工具以及人类病原体的分析，以确定微生物污染物是否来自人类来源或对人类健康构成风险。 该项目的核心将是开发一种新的esp基因源追踪检测方法，并测试其在热带海洋沃茨追踪人类肠球菌的有效性。此外，在工作期间获得的弧菌和肠球菌分离株将被添加到研究者的培养物收藏中，以便使用比较遗传技术进行进一步的遗传表征。除了这项研究可能对热带海洋环境中人类健康-水质问题的研究产生明显的更广泛的影响外，它还将为研究生的参与提供一些支持。

With funds from this Small Grant for Exploratory Research (SGER), investigators at Stanford University will collaborate with coleagues at the University of Hawaii at Manoa to investigate an area of emerging importance in oceans and human health that has not been studied extensively in the past: the sources, fate, and transport of microbial pollutants in tropical marine waters. This emerging area was proclaimed by experts at the USEPA-sponsored Pellston-style workshop on microbial pollution in Spring 2007 as one of the most important to pursue in the next 2-5 years. The research team expects to make major strides toward establishing a framework for evaluating sources of microbial pollutants in tropical waters and will establish the use of a new source tracking tool. The study area, Hanalei Bay, located on the North Shore of Kauai, is one of the top five tourist beaches in the U.S. The Bay's beneficial uses include fishing, swimming, surfing, and boating. Hanalei Bay has the worst microbial water quality in the state of Hawaii, according to the National Resources Defense Council; 43% of the water samples taken in the bay near the mouth of the Hanalei River (an American Heritage River) in 2005 were in violation of water quality criteria. Preliminary research in Hanalei Bay suggests that humans contribute to microbial pollution in the bay. This is not surprising inasmuch as the community relies exclusively on septic systems and cesspools for wastewater disposal. The bay represents an ideal environmental to test and showcase new tools and methods for assessing human contributions of microbial pollution to tropical waters. The project will feature a tiered approach to microbial source tracking using novel tools developed as part of the proposed work and at PRCMB. In the first tier, the team will characterize near shore water quality in Hanalei Bay and identify potential sources near the bay using microbial indicators. This will yield insight into the physical and biological controls on the abundance and distribution of microbial pollution in the Bay and will identify regional scale predictors of unsafe conditions. In the second tier, they will use source tracking tools as well as assays for human pathogens to determine if microbial pollutants are from a human source or represent a human health risk. The centerpiece of the project will be the development of a novel esp gene source tracking assay and the testing of its validity for tracking human enterococci in tropical marine waters. In addition, Vibrio and enterococci isolates obtained during the work will be added to the investigators' culture collections for further genetic characterizations using comparative genetic techniques. In addition to the obvious broader impacts that this research could have on the study of human health - water quality issues in tropical marine settings, it would also provide some support for graduate student participation.