A Gram-negative, short rod-shaped bacterium, strain GA2-M15 T , was isolated from a sea-sand sample at Homi Cape, Pohang city, Republic of Korea. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis demonstrated that this isolate was unique, showing 95.9 % sequence similarity to the type strain of Thalassobacter stenotrophicus and similarities of 94.0-95.2 % to the type strains of species of the genera Octadecabacter (94.4-95.2 %), Jannaschia (94.0-94.4 %) and Thalassobius (94.0-94.7 %). Chemotaxonomic characteristics (diphosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylglycerol, phosphatidylethanolamine and phosphatidylcholine as the major polar lipids and C 18 : 1 v7c as the predominant fatty acid) and DNA G+C content (56 mol%) were also similar to those of Thalassobacter stenotrophicus. 16S rRNA gene sequence similarity, physiological properties and some fatty acid components showed that strain GA2-M15T could be differentiated fromThalassobacter stenotrophicus. On the basis of these results, strain GA2-M15 T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Thalassobacter, for which the name Thalassobacter arenae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is GA2-M15 T (5KACC 12675The genus Thalassobacter was described to accommodate a single bacterial strain isolated from Mediterranean seawater (Macián et al., 2005). A subsequent polyphasic taxonomic approach revealed that the type strains of Jannaschia cystaugens (Adachi et al., 2004) and Thalassobacter stenotrophicus (Macián et al., 2005) were highly similar and should be considered to be members of the same species. Pujalte et al. (2005) thus proposed the unification of the two species as Thalassobacter stenotrophicus and provided an emended description of the genus Thalassobacter. Phylogenetically, this genus is a member of the Alphaproteobacteria, and is closely related to the genera Jannaschia, Octadecabacter and Thalassobius. Thalassobacter was characterized as comprising Gramnegative, strictly aerobic, chemo-organotrophic, slightly halophilic bacteria, with C 18 : 1 v7c as the major fatty acid and phosphatidylglycerol, diphosphatidylglycerol and phosphatidylcholine as the major polar lipids.Strain GA2-M15 T was isolated from a sea-sand sample collected from the coast of Homi Cape, Pohang city, Republic of Korea. Isolation of the strain was performed by using the standard dilution-plating method on marine agar 2216 (MA; Difco) kept at 30 u C for 10 days. The culture was maintained routinely on MA at 30 uC and was preserved as glycerol suspensions (15 %, v/v) at 280 u C. Strain GA2-M15 T grew weakly on nutrient agar (NA), but did not grow on R2A, trypticase soy agar (TSA) or MacConkey agar (all from Difco). Thalassobacter stenotrophicus DSM 16310 T was obtained from the Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen (DSMZ), Braunschweig, Germany, and was used as a reference strain.The methods described by Smibert & Krieg (1994) were used for Gram staining and to detect accumulation of polyhydroxybutyrate, the presence of catalase and oxidase, and hydrolysis of casein, DNA and sta...

Two bacterial strains isolated from air samples, 5317S-33 T and 5413S-11 T , were characterized by determining their phenotypic characteristics, cellular fatty acid profiles and phylogenetic positions based on 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that these isolates belonged to the genus Methylobacterium. Strain 5317S-33 T was most closely related to Methylobacterium adhaesivum AR27 T (97.9 % sequence similarity). Strain

Two bacterial strains, R2A1-13T and R2A45-3T, were isolated from greenhouse soils in Korea. The cells of both strains were Gram-negative, aerobic and rod-shaped. 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis placed the isolates in the genus Flavobacterium within the family Flavobacteriaceae. Strain R2A1-13T was found to be related to Flavobacterium columnare IAM 14301T, Flavobacterium saliperosum CGMCC1.3801T and Flavobacterium croceum EMB47T, with sequence similarities of 96.8, 95.0 and 94.6 %, respectively. Strain R2A45-3T was found to be related to F. croceum EMB47T and Flavobacterium aquatile ATCC 11947T, with sequence similarities of 94.7 and 94.6 %, respectively. Both strains contained iso-C15 : 0 and iso-C16 : 0 as the main fatty acids and contained a menaquinone with six isoprene units (MK-6) as the major isoprenoid quinone. The G+C contents of the DNA from strains R2A1-13T and R2A45-3T were 34 and 38 mol%, respectively. A polyphasic taxonomic study revealed that these strains belong to two novel species within the genus Flavobacterium, for which the names Flavobacterium terrae sp. nov. and Flavobacterium cucumis sp. nov. are proposed. The type strains of F. terrae sp. nov. and F. cucumis sp. nov. are R2A1-13T (=KACC 11731T=DSM 18829T) and R2A45-3T (=KACC 11732T=DSM 18830T), respectively.