Detection of Vibrionaceae in mussels and in their seawater growing area

The seasonal trend and frequency of detection of Vibrionaceae in seawater samples and in molluscs collected in the Adriatic Sea was measured. Over a 2-year period, 726 bacterial strains were isolated, of which 46.9% belonged to the Vibrio genus, 29.8% to the Aeromonas genus and the remaining 23.3% was made up of the Pseudomonas, Flavobacterium, Pasteurella, Agrobacterium and Ochrobacterium genera. Many of the isolated strains were shown to produce toxins. The Vibrio genus, which was isolated more often than the other genera, was particularly prevalent in summer (54.4% of the total number of bacteria isolated during this season), while it was scarce in the winter months.