Sashi Kanta Dash
P.G. Department of Microbiology, Centre for Post Graduate Studies, OUAT,
Bhubaneswar – 751 003. India.
ABSTRACT
Bacterial biodiversity of the coastal waters of Bay of Bengal was studied for the first time in the state of Orissa. The entire 460 km. long coastline which starts from Chandaneswar in the North to Bahuda in the South were divided into four study sites such as Chandipur, Paradip, Puri & Gopalpur. From all the four study sites a total number of 36 bacterial strains were isolated. Presence of coliforms in the water samples of Chandipur and Puri coast indicates faecal contamination of these water bodies which could be due to heavy tourist activity. These 36 bacterial strains were categorized into 9 different genera as per their biochemical characterisation. Gram reaction of these isolates indicates 83% of the total isolates belong to Gram –ve type. Most of these bacterial isolates were found to be potential producers of various types of enzymes such as amylase, lipase, pectinase, cellulase etc. Presence of a large numbers of pathogenic Vibrio sp. in the coastal water indicates the probability of infection to human beings as well as other aquatic animals. The enzymatic activity and antibiogram pattern of these marine bacterial isolates were studied in details for industrial application as well as for human safety.
Keywords: Keywords: Marine bacteria, Antibiogram, Enzyme activity.