Erythrobacter insulae sp. Nov., isolated from a tidal flat

A Gram-staining-negative, aerobic, non-motile and coccoid, ovoid or rod-shaped bacterial strain, designated as JBTF-M21^T, was isolated from a tidal flat sediment on the Yellow Sea, Republic of Korea. The neighbour-joining phylogenetic tree based on 16S rRNA gene sequences indicated that JBTF-M21^T fell within the clade comprising the type strains of species of the genus Erythrobacter. JBTF-M21^T exhibited 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 97.0–98.4% to the type strains of Erythrobacter longus, Erythrobacter aquimaris, Erythrobacter nanhaisediminis, Erythrobacter vulgaris, Erythrobacter seohaensis, Erythrobacter litoralis and Erythrobacter citreus and 93.7–96.6% to the type strains of the other species of the genus Erythrobacter. The ANI and dDDH values between JBTF-M21^T and the type strains of E. longus, E. nanhaisediminis, E. seohaensis and E. litoralis were 70.83–72.93% and 18.0–18.8%, respectively. Mean DNA–DNA relatedness values between JBTF-M21^T and the type strains of E. aquimaris, E. vulgaris and E. citreus were 12–24%. The DNA G+C content of JBTF-M21^T was 57.0 mol%. JBTF-M21^T contained Q-10 as the predominant ubiquinone and C_18:1ω7c and C_17:1ω6c as the major fatty acids. The major polar lipids ofJBTF-M21^T were phosphatidylcholine, phosphatidylethanolamine, phosphatidylglycerol and sphingoglycolipid. Distinguishing phenotypic properties, together with the phylogenetic and genetic distinctiveness, revealed that JBTF-M21^T is separated from species of the genus Erythrobacter with validly published names. On the basis of the data presented, strain JBTF-M21^T is considered to represent a novel species of the genus Erythrobacter, for which the name Erythrobacter insulae sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is JBTF-M21^T (=KACC 19864^T=NBRC 113584^T).