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Physicochemical parameters aid microbial community? A case study from marine recreational beaches, Southern India

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Abstract

A total of 176 (water and sediment) samples from 22 stations belonging to four different (urban, semi-urban, rural, and holy places) human habitations of Tamil Nadu beaches were collected and analyzed for physiochemical and microbial parameters during 2008–2009. Bacterial counts were two- to tenfold higher in sediments than in water due to strong bacterial aggregations by dynamic flocculation and rich organic content. The elevated bacterial communities during the monsoon explain rainfalls and several other wastes from inlands. Coliform counts drastically increased at holy and urban places due to pilgrimage and other ritual activities. Higher values of the pollution index (PI) ratio (>1) reveals, human fecal pollutions affect the water quality. The averaged PI ratio shows a substantial higher microbial contamination in holy places than in urban areas and the order of decreasing PI ratios observed were: holy places > urban areas > semi-urban areas > rural areas. Correlation and factor analysis proves microbial communities were not related to physicochemical parameters. Principal component analysis indicates 55.32 % of the total variance resulted from human/animal fecal matters and sewage contaminants whereas 19.95 % were related to organic contents and waste materials from the rivers. More than 80 % of the samples showed a higher fecal coliform and Streptococci by crossing the World Health Organization's permissible limits.

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Acknowledgments

This study was supported by a grant of NRF (2012R1A2A2A02012617). The work was also supported by Project “Research environmental-friendly aquaculture technology using BFT (13-AQ-50)”, National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI) of South Korea.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Marine Science, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, 620024, Tamil Nadu, India

    Sivanandham Vignesh, Kunnampuram Varghese Emmanuel, Murugaiah Santhosh Gokul, Krishnan Muthukumar & Rathinam Arthur James

  2. Department of Life Science, College of Natural Sciences, Sangmyung University, 7 Hongji-dong, Jongno-gu, Seoul, 110-743, South Korea

    Sivanandham Vignesh & Hans-Uwe Dahms

  3. National Fisheries Research and Development Institute (NFRDI), Inland Fisheries Research Institute, Gwangju-si, Kyunggi-do, 114-3, South Korea

    Bong-Rae Kim

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  1. Sivanandham Vignesh
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  2. Hans-Uwe Dahms
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  3. Kunnampuram Varghese Emmanuel
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  4. Murugaiah Santhosh Gokul
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Correspondence to Hans-Uwe Dahms or Rathinam Arthur James.

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Fig. 1

Seasonal variation of physiochemical parameters in Tamil Nadu beaches (a EC and b TDS) (JPEG 1,890 kb)

Fig. 2

Seasonal variation of pollution indicators in water (W) and sediment (S) samples in urban areas (JPEG 3,502 kb)

Fig. 3

Seasonal variation of pollution indicators in water (W) and sediment (S) samples in semi-urban areas (JPEG 3,792 kb)

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Vignesh, S., Dahms, HU., Emmanuel, K.V. et al. Physicochemical parameters aid microbial community? A case study from marine recreational beaches, Southern India. Environ Monit Assess 186, 1875–1887 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-013-3501-z

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