Assessment of multiple fecal contamination sources in surface waters using environmental mitochondrial DNA metabarcoding.Waterborne diseases are transmitted to humans through the fecal contamination of water, where homeothermic species are the main reservoir.  Furthermore, as fecal inputs and contamination could originate from multiple sources (e.g., human, livestock, wildlife), multiple source tracking markers are required to identify fecal sources.  From a previous study, we developed a mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) metabarcoding approach to assess the presence of multiple homeotherms in four surface waters.  Multivariate analyses showed significant covariations between homeothermic taxa and fecal coliforms, enterococci, β-D-glucuronidase, conductivity, the human-specific Bacteroidales Hf183 genetic marker, and the human population, in the watersheds of L'Assomption River (p = 0.001) and Ville-Marie (p = 0.015) (Province of Quebec, Canada). 
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