3.2. Virus recovery and enumeration efficiency
The efficiency of virus detachment and staining for both protocolswas
tested by estimating the recovery of the T4 virus from
seeded samples, as well as total virus recovery. The recovery
efficiency of the seeded T4 coliphage varied between the two
protocols, with theoptimised protocol presentedhere recovering
102 ± 2.7% compared to that of Brussaard et al. (2010), which
recovered 85.4 ± 2.1% (0.93 ± 0.02 109 mL1 and
0.78 ± 0.02 109 mL1 of the 0.91 109 seeded abundance
respectively). Total virus recovery also varied, the optimised
protocol recovered 1.07 ± 0.03 109 mL1 compared with
0.87 ± 0.02109mL1 recovered by that of Brussaard et al. (2010),
an increase of 22.9%.