Marie-Stéphanie Fradette

Cryptosporidium and Giardia are protozoan parasites responsible for gastrointestinal illnesses in humans and in animal species. The main way these parasites are transmitted is by ingestion of their (oo)cysts in drinking water. Monitoring (oo)cysts in water sources is beneficial to evaluate the quality of raw water supplying treatment plants. Curren...

Objective This study was designed to find a method to enhance the recovery of Cryptosporidium spp. and Giardia spp. parasites from water samples for research purposes compared to the results that can be achieved with USEPA Method 1623.1. Four different approaches were used to test water samples that were artificially spiked with parasites. The appr...

Among the major issues linked with producing safe water for consumption is the presence of the parasitic protozoa Cryptosporidium spp. and Giardia spp. Since they are both responsible for gastrointestinal illnesses that can be waterborne, their monitoring is crucial, especially in water sources feeding treatment plants. Although their discovery was...

Protists are key stone components of aquatic ecosystems, sustaining primary productivity and aquatic food webs. However, their diversity, ecology and structuring factors shaping their temporal distribution remain strongly misunderstood in freshwaters. Using high-throughput sequencing on water samples collected over 16 different months (including tw...

Bacteria are key players in biogeochemical cycles and control water quality in freshwater ecosystems. Nevertheless, little is known about the identity and ecology of riverine bacteria, especially during ice‐covered periods that are often mistakenly perceived as periods with negligible biological activities. Here, we analyzed in detail the effects o...

We describe an inexpensive, reliable, and easily executed improvement for the extraction of DNA from SterivexTM filter units, that involves the separation of the SterivexTM filter from its casing. Our study demonstrates that our modification of the original extraction protocol significantly increased DNA yields, with an average increase of 4.1-fold...