Seven Gram-negative strains, isolated in 1990 from a 10 6 -fold dilution series of seawater from Resurrection Bay, a deep fjord of the Gulf of Alaska, were identified in a polyphasic taxonomic study. Analysis of 16S rDNA sequences and DNA-homology studies confirmed the phylogenetic position of all strains in the genus Sphingomonas and further indicated that all of the strains constitute a single homogeneous genomic species, distinct from all validly described Sphingomonas species. The ability to differentiate the species, both phenotypically and chemotaxonomically, from its nearest neighbours justifies the proposal of a new species name, Sphingomonas alaskensis sp. nov., for this taxon. Strain LMG 18877 T (l RB2256 T l DSM 13593 T ) was selected as the type strain.Keywords : Sphingomonas alaskensis sp. nov., identification, polyphasic taxonomy, marine ultramicrobacterium
INTRODUCTIONMicrobiologists have been intrigued by the phenomenon of ' unculturability ' for over half a century, especially with respect to bacteria in the open ocean (MacLeod, 1985). This notion has now virtually reached the status of a dogma but is still based primarily on the common observation that often numerically dominant marine bacteria cannot be grown on agar surfaces (Austin, 1988 ;Jannasch & Jones, 1959 ;Kogure et al., 1979Kogure et al., , 1980Poindexter & Leadbetter, 1986 ;Roszak & Colwell, 1987 ; Schut et al., 1997a, b ; Van Es & MeyerReil, 1982). These studies all point in the same direction and indicate that by using agar-plate counts and isolation procedures usually less than 0n1 % of the total community that is observed by direct microscopy can be cultured. As a logical consequence of this situation, most of our knowledge on the physiological properties of marine bacteria is based on those species that are Abbreviations : FAS, filtered-autoclaved seawater ; FAMEs, fatty acid methyl esters.The EMBL accession numbers for the sequences determined in this work are AF145752 (1280 bp), AF145753 (1416 bp) and AF145754 (1428 bp), respectively.readily obtained in culture but which mostly belong to a minority of the total community. Culture-independent molecular techniques are now widely used to obtain a thorough understanding of the identity and nature of the bacteria comprising marine heterotrophic communities, because of their apparent unculturability. This approach has indeed indicated the existence of numerous possibly ' new ' and unusual uncultured bacteria (Amann et al., 1995 ;Britschgi & Giovannoni, 1991 ;Fuhrman et al., 1992Fuhrman et al., , 1993Giovannoni et al., 1990Giovannoni et al., , 1995Ho$ fle & Brettar, 1996 ;Mullins et al., 1995 ;Schmidt et al., 1991). The developments in the use of molecular probes for the detection of natural bacterial populations and for the analysis of genetic diversity within communities have revolutionized our approach in microbial ecology so much that they may create the impression that isolation and cultivation of naturally occurring bacterial strains might soon cease to be required. However, th...