Marinomonas basaltis sp. nov., a marine bacterium isolated from black sand

A Gram-negative, aerobic, slightly halophilic, rod-shaped bacterium was isolated from black sand in Soesoggak, Jeju island, Korea. The strain, designated J63^T, was oxidase- and catalase-positive and arginine dihydrolase-negative. The isolate required Na⁺ for growth and differed from phenotypically related species by being able to utilize sucrose and D-galactose as a carbon source. Phylogenetic analysis based on the sequence of the 16S rRNA gene revealed that strain J63^T belongs to the genus Marinomonas. It exhibited 16S rRNA gene sequence similarities of 97.6-98.7% to the closely related species Marinomonas communis, Marinomonas ostreistagni, Marinomonas aquimarina and Marinomonas vaga. The phylogenetic analysis revealed that strain J63^T comprised a relatively long subline of descent, shared a branch point with the outlying species Marinomonas communis and occupied a phylogenetically distant position on the main Marinomonas branch. Based on DNA-DNA hybridization, the levels of relatedness between strain J63^T and M. communis NBRC 102224^T, M. aquimarina CIP 108405^T and M. vaga JCM 20774^T were 56.2, 45.1 and 51.3%, respectively. On the basis of the phenotypic, genetic and phylogenetic data, strain J63^T should be placed in the genus Marinomonas as representing a novel species, for which the name Marinomonas basaltis sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is J63^T (=KCTC 22118^T=JCM 14948^T).