**2.2 Sea water sampling**

The samples from close stations (western Black Sea, the Sea of Marmara, and the Golden Horn Estuary, western Black Sea) were transported daily to the Aquatic Microbial Ecology Laboratory of Faculty of Fisheries of Istanbul University.

However, because of the long distances (Northern Aegean Sea, Eastern Mediterranean) between the sampling point and the laboratory, some analyses for filtration (indicator bacteria), pre-enrichment, selective enrichment (*Salmonella* spp.) and isolation were carried out during the cruise on the Bacteriology Laboratory of the Research Vessel YUNUS-S.

The numbers of the sea water samples which were collected from various marine areas between the years 1998 and 2010 according to sampling stations were summarized in the Table 1.
