Bacteriological monitoring of pollution in shellfish: Methodological evaluation

This paper compares three different methods to determine faecal pollution in shellfish. Two of these are related to MPN (Most Probable Number) technique and the last one is a direct count. The different results which may be obtained using these different techniques are shown. The relevance that introduction of the intervalve water may have on the bacterial titres in shellfish is presented. The shellfish utilized in this work came from two locations situated in the same bay. Simultaneous analyses on flesh, intervalve water and shellfish growing water show the different microbial titre that these three elements may have at the same time.