Comparison of somatic and F+ coliphage enumeration methods with large volume surface water samples

Coliphages are alternative fecal indicators that may be suitable surrogates for viral pathogens, but majority of standard detection methods utilize insufficient volumes for routine detection in environmental waters. We compared three somatic and F+ coliphage methods based on a paired measurement from 1 L samples collected from the Great Lakes (n = 74). Methods include: 1) dead-end hollow fiber ultrafilter with single agar layer (D-HFUF-SAL); 2) modified SAL (M-SAL); and 3) direct membrane filtration (DMF) technique. Overall, D-HFUF-SAL outperformed other methods as it yielded the lowest frequency of non-detects [(ND); 10.8%] and the highest average concentrations of recovered coliphage for positive samples (2.51 ± 1.02 [standard deviation, SD] log₁₀ plaque forming unit/liter (PFU/L) and 0.79 ± 0.71 (SD) log₁₀ PFU/L for somatic and F+, respectively). M-SAL yielded 29.7% ND and average concentrations of 2.26 ± 1.15 (SD) log₁₀ PFU/L (somatic) and 0.59 ± 0.82 (SD) log₁₀ PFU/L (F+). DMF performance was inferior to D-HFUF-SAL and M-SAL methods (ND of 65.6%; average somatic coliphage concentration 1.52 ± 1.32 [SD] log₁₀ PFU/L, no F+ detected), indicating this procedure is unsuitable for 1 L surface water sample volumes. This study represents an important step toward the use of a coliphage method for recreational water quality criteria purposes.