ABSTRACT
Soils may contain a wide variety of viruses. Bacterial viruses are produced by indigenous soil bacteria and may have a role in the ecology of soil microorganisms. The actual virus concentration in raw sewage depends on several factors, including the volume of raw sewage, the human population density, and the percent of the population that is infected with enteric viruses. Inasmuch as poliovirus is relatively easy to culture and assay under laboratory conditions and as effective immunization against paralytic poliomyelitis is available, serotypes of poliovirus have been used as model indicator viruses in studies of the survival and movement of viruses in soil. Knowledge of the types and concentrations of indigenous bacteriophages in soil is limited, primarily as the result of the complex nature of soil and of methodological problems. The detection of indigenous phages in soil, in contrast to aquatic environments, is hampered by difficulties in extracting the phages from the solid phase of soil.
