Prevalence of autochthonous Vibrio cholera and role of abiotic environmental factors in their distribution along the Kerala- Karnataka Coast

Authors and Affiliation: V.S. Sudhanandh , S. Amaldev and K.N. Babu, Centre for Earth Science Studies, Akkulam, Trivandrum, Kerala

Journal: Research Journal of Microbiology, 5(11), 2010, 1083-1092

Abstract: Occurrence and distribution of Vibrio cholerae (VC) with respect to different abiotic environmental factors were studied for a period of three year from 2003-2005 and interpreted using Principal component analysis and Pearson correlation. Study reveals the serious dimensions of increase in VC population (2.67% in 2003, 5.33% in 2004 and 92% in 2005 in Mangalore) over the years. Among all stations, Kochi and Mangalore seems to be highly polluted. The PCA extracted four significant main components explains more than 75% of the variance. Of them the most contributing descriptors in the first PC (24.29%) were total nitrogen, silicate, temperature and V.cholerae. On the other hand V. cholerae showed significant positive correlation against temperature (0.01 levels) and also with total nitrogen and silicate (0.05 levels). Component plot showed that variables have tendency to accumulate into three distinct groups. V. cholerae and temperature belongs to one group and nutrients on the other group, which indicate that temperature and nutrients are the major factor governing the distribution of V. cholerae. The result of the study provides insight into the ecology of this aquatic species and is potentially important to the understanding of the epidemiology of cholerae on a global scale.