Salinimicrobium aquimaris sp. nov., a novel Flavobacteriaceae member isolated from seawater in the tidal region of Danzhou, Hainan Island.

A yellow, Gram-stain-negative, facultatively anaerobic and rod-shaped strain, designated as HB62T, was isolated from seawater in the tidal region of Danzhou, Hainan Island, People's Republic of China. Growth of strain HB62T occurs at 16-40 °C, 0.5-10.0% (w/v) and pH 6.0-9.5 with the optima of 37 °C, 1.5-2.0% (w/v) and pH 6.5-7.0. Strain HB62T could grow anaerobically by using nitrate and sulphate as electron acceptors. The 16S rRNA gene sequence identity analysis showed that strain HB62T shared the highest sequence identity of 98.0% with Salinimicrobium soli CAU 1287T and those of ≤97.9% and ≤94.6% with the rest of Salinimicrobium type strains and other genera type strains, respectively. Phylogenetic trees based on 16S rRNA genes and single-copy orthologous clusters revealed that strain HB62T was stably clustered into the genus Salinimicrobium. Average nucleotide identity and digital DNA-DNA hybridization values of strain HB62T and Salinimicrobium type strains were 72.1-78.2% and 17.8-21.2%, respectively, which were lower than the species delineation thresholds. The sole respiratory quinone was identified as menaquinone-6. Major fatty acids (>10%) are iso-C15:0, iso-C16:0 and summed feature 9 (iso-C17:1  ω9c and/or C16:0 10-methyl). Polar lipids included phosphatidylethanolamine, two unidentified glycolipids, three unidentified lipids and two unidentified aminolipids. Based on the genetic, chemotaxonomic and phenotypic results, strain HB62T is concluded to represent a novel Salinimicrobium species, for which the name Salinimicrobium aquimaris sp. nov. is proposed. The type strain is HB62T (=KCTC 102226T=MCCC 1K08856T).