The Standardization of Water Filtering to Compare Concentrations of Colony Morphology and Diversity to Plastic Samples

Abstract

With an ever‐growing public interest in plastic pollution in the ocean, its widespread ecological effects are still poorly understood at all points in its life cycle; including coastal microbiomes and microfilms. However, making sensible comparisons to waterborne communities, which have a much lower bacterial density, requires some additional experimental design considerations. By utilizing the Most Probable Number (MPN) method, we will measure microorganism growth, colony diversity and colony morphology of the surrounding ocean water compared to plastic samples that have been incubated for at least 30 days. We will discuss the process of collecting samples, applying and testing the MPN method, growing microbial samples, and the identification and testing of bacteria colonies.