Fecal Coliform Lab Report

Water has a huge impact on human health and should be tested for fecal coliforms to maintain safety for the human population. Lake Byron, one of the water samples used in this experiment, will contain the most fecal coliforms because the surface of the water temperature is constantly rising to be ideal for growth of bacteria. The amount of positive Durham lactose broth tubes helped us to identify the MPN/100 mL of fecal coliforms. Inoculating an EMB plate with a positive coliform helped us suspect the possibility of E. Coli, and we were able to complete an IMViC series to identify the bacteria found in the water sample. Our results indicated that a water sample from USM Creek had the highest number of fecal coliforms, and a swimming pool water

Whitlock et al. (2002) describe coliforms as fingerprints that can help us find the origin of certain fecal bacteria. There are a large number of high health significant bacteria that can be detected with fecal coliform indicators such as Escherichia coli (E. Coli), Shigella flexneri, Salmonella enterica, Vibrio cholerae, and Yersinia entercolitica (Brettar and Hӧfle, 2008). Because E. Coli is one of the most prevalent fecal coliforms, we used five different water samples to test for the bacteria’s presence (Whitlock et al., 2002). E. Coli is one of the most ubiquitous microorganisms and is found in the intestinal communities of both humans and animals. While E. Coli is naturally harmless, Jones (1999) explains that some strains of E. Coli found in the intestines of certain hosts can actually be fatal if introduced to another species. Some severe symptoms of E. Coli include: bloody diarrhea, haemolytic-uraemic syndrome, and thrombotic thrombocytopaenic purpura (Jones, 1999). By using E. Coli as our fecal coliform, our experiment will help find which water sample has the most fecal coliforms and will also find a specific enteric bacteria found in each sample. I hypothesize that Lake Byron will contain the most fecal coliforms because the lake is very small and lacks shading from the environment; therefore the surface of the water is constantly being heated to raise temperature that is optimum for most