A novel bacterial strain, NIBR3T, was isolated from a
Microcystis aeruginosa
culture. Strain NIBR3T was characterized as Gram-negative, rod-shaped, catalase- and oxidase-positive, and aerobic. The 16S rRNA gene sequence analysis showed that strain NIBR3T was most closely related to
Mesorhizobium carbonis
B2.3T (=KCTC 52461),
Mesorhizobium oceanicum
B7T (=KCTC 42783) and
Mesorhizobium qingshengii
CCBAU 33460T (=HAMBI 3277), at 98.7, 97.2 and 97.2% similarity, respectively. Our phylogenetic analyses revealed that three strains [strain NIBR3T with the previously reported two
Mesorhizobium
species (
M. carbonis
B2.3T and
M. oceanicum
B7T)] formed a distinct cluster from other
Mesorhizobium
type strains. The average nucleotide identity of strain NIBR3T relative to
M. carbonis
B2.3T
, M. oceanicum B7T, and
M. qingshengii
CCBAU 33460T was found to be 84.3, 79.4 and 75.8 %, with average amino-acid identities of 85.1, 74.8 and 64.3 %, and digital DNA–DNA hybridization values of 27.6, 22.6 and 20.7 %, respectively. The genome size and genomic DNA G+C content of NIBR3T were 6.1 Mbp and 67.9 mol%, respectively. Growth of strain NIBR3T was observed at 23–45 °C (optimum, 33 °C), at pH 6–11 (optimum, 8) and in the presence of 0–4 % (w/v) NaCl (optimum, 0 %). The major polar lipids in this novel strain were phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidylmethylethanolamine. The predominant respiratory quinone was Q-10. Summed feature 8 (C18 : 1
ω7c and/or C18 : 1
ω6c) was the most abundant cellular fatty acid in strain NIBR3T. Based on genotypic characteristics using our genomic data, strain NIBR3T was identified as a member of new genus, Aquibium gen. nov., with the two aforementioned stains. The type strain f the novel species, Aquibium microcysteis sp. nov., is NIBR3T (=KACC 22092T=HAMBI 3738T). We also reclassified
Mesorhizobium carbonis
and
M. oceanicum
as Aquibium carbonis comb. nov. and A. oceanicum comb. nov., respectively.