In order to obtain the fundamental data to control the formation of marine microbiofouling by bacteriophages, titanium and aluminum alloy plates were immersed at Okunouchi Bay in Seto Inland Sea, and the marine fouling bacteria attached were isolated and characterized. Then the bacteriophages lysing the marine fouling bacteria were located and characterized. The results obtained were as follows;
(1) Nineteen strains of fouling bacteria were isolated from the surface of the test plates. As the result of their characterization, they belonged to the following genera; Pseudomonas (8 strains), Vibrio (5 strains), Flavobacterium (4 strains) and Moraxella-Acinetobacter (one strain). It was found that motile bacterial strains were dominant on the surface of the titanium plate, while non-motile bacterial strains were dominant on the surface of the aluminum alloy plate.
(2) The bacteriophages lysing the marine fouling bacteria were isolated from seawater of Aki-Nada, Hiroshima Bay and other places. Thirteen of the 19 strains of the fouling bacteria were susceptible to the bacteriophage-lysates enriched from the seawater. All of the bacteriophage strains had hexagonal heads and their diameter were 54-58nm.