Conclusion

The cultivation of environmental samples (air, surfaces, water) remains the standard and classic method today, enabling biological control of contamination by cultivable micro-organisms only.

A wide range of new technologies are now affordable for environmental microbiology laboratories. Rapid methods, requiring a culture step, and alternative methods, directly analyzing the sample, provide more sensitive, more precise and more reproducible test results for viable micro-organisms (cultivable or non-cultivable).

If required, these methods can be used to supplement information on the quantification and identification of micro-organisms, as well as to extend the scope of research by covering the entire microbial community, viable, non-viable and non-cultivable. Some of these methods can also be fully automated, enabling increased throughput,...